Precious Gifts
by ArtemisKai
Summary: Spike returns and teams with Anya in attempts to woo back Buffy and Xander with gifts. But when the gifts turn out to be cursed, everyone's in for a very rocky reunion. As if everything wasn't bad enough already. *Co-written by ArtemisKai and Rubygoddess*
1. Old Things in A New Light

Disclaimer: We do not own any of the characters, they all belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. 
Summary: Soulful Spike returns to Sunny-D and he and another resident scorned lover, Anya, try to woo back Xander and Buffy the old fashioned way: using gifts. When the gifts turn out to be cursed, all four are in for a reunion that was a lot more than they'd bargained for . . . 
Pairing: B/S, X/A
    Dedications: To Plum Jade, who gave us great ideas for the story! 
    Co-written by ArtemisKai and Rubygoddess

Chapter 1: Old Things in a New Light 

Everything looked as it was.
Same colored lights, same shabby stage, hell, even the same   
boring people loitering in the same places besides the same pool table, the   
same bar. Everything in Sunnydale always looked exactly the same through the   
years, no matter how many near-apocalypses overtook it, no matter how many   
demons, vampires and hell-gods who wanted otherwise. And the Bronze was one   
of those constant fixtures, that no matter how trashed it got by trolls,   
vampire gangs or pissed-off slayers, always managed to scrap itself together   
into looking exactly as it had before. It was testament to the never-ending   
lie that Sunnydale citizens imposed on themselves, trying to convince   
themselves that their hometown was normal, despite everyday chaos and   
questionable fatality rate. And it worked. World-weary patrons could always   
count on coming to their favorite Sunnydale hangout and finding nothing   
different or changed at all.

Except for one world-weary patron that is.

Perhaps it was he who had changed so much that the familiar   
colored lights and chattered whispers of the Bronze that he had become   
accustomed to after years seemed suddenly alien in feeling and appearance.   
Yes, it was definitely he, who had changed, although it could not be so   
easily seen physically. He wore his usual attire of black---black shirt,   
black pants, black boots---everything except his characteristic black   
leather duster. His hair was the customary blinding blonde, styled into   
floppy short curls that fell around his chiseled face. And his eyes remained   
the constant burning blue they had been for over a century. Yes, he looked   
completely the same as the last time the town of Sunnydale saw him.

But something was different with him elementally. And it was   
causing him to see his old surroundings in a new light. He used to look on   
the crowds that packed the Bronze with disdain, as well as faint tinges of   
violence, as if they were all walking targets on which to place his   
aggression. Even after he was restricted technologically from acting out   
this violence, a slight smattering of bloodlust remained within him.  
More than that, he used to look upon them with a feeling of   
apathy. He could not relate to them, so hence, he didn't care for them. They   
were humans, they stank of humanity, that was their problem, it had nothing   
to do with him. He almost pitied them in their desperate on-going struggle   
to deal with the problems humanity inevitably offered them. A conscience   
would be a buggering thing to have, he reasoned.

Oh how he missed those days. The days when he could come here   
to only play pool and eat buffalo wings or that marvelous flower onion thing   
they had. The days when he could drown out the skittering noise of the   
Bronze and reside in dark corners in peace without the irritation of caring   
what people thought when he arrogantly strut about the place, flask in hand,   
cigarette in mouth. The days when the only thing that could ever overpower   
him here and make him feel less than godly would be the occasional presence   
of one blonde Slayer. It was only then when his knees shook and he felt   
something stir within his chest that could be possibly thought upon as the   
same human-like aspect that he held so much contempt for in other people.

But now . . .

The same colored lights he had frequently gazed upon a year   
ago blinded his eyes. Even when he tried to hide in dark corners, the light   
sought him out, placed him in target and forced him out in the open. He   
never noticed how bright they could be before. He supposed that's because he   
himself only used to see everything in the darkest of terms.  
The noise of the Bronze crowds used to sail by him in a long stream of   
irrelevance, meshing into one persistently annoying noise that became easy   
to ignore. Now, he was drowning in it. The different conversations   
surrounded him, tearing his head apart into different directions,   
distracting him with endless swirls of confusion until the only noise he   
could distinguish from the whole mess of noise was the singular pump of a   
heartbeat. Everywhere he heard it. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. And he hated himself   
for hearing it.

He should have never come back. There was nothing left for him   
here . . . he thought that maybe, there was some way, after what happened in   
Africa, there was her . . . but no.  
He looked critically around the Bronze and paused to reflect.   
Everything was different now. He saw everything in a new light, a horrible   
light. What if he saw her in that light as well?

Suddenly he spotted a person among the crowd that didn't seem   
so foreign and far removed from his perceptions of past. A female,   
despondently cradling her head in her hands as she sat at a table by   
herself, only a lonely drink to keep her company. He studied her, asked   
himself if it was the best thing to approach her. But before he could act on   
better judgment, he had already called out her name.

"Anya!"

Her head sprang up at the sound of her name. He paused when he got a few   
feet from her and hesitated to plop into the chair next to her. But she made   
no motion that she preferred him to sit or stand. So he stood.

"Spike." She looked exactly the same, he thought. Even with   
this bloody new perception of the world he had recently gained, she gave off   
the same air she ever did. Slightly annoyed, slightly petulant, and as   
always, apathetic. The only difference was her hair color of course. Now it   
appeared her ever-changing mood had led her to the domain of tawny brown. Of   
course the inconsistency of her hair color was one thing that made her so   
consistent in the first place. "I heard you were back in town."

This surprised him. He hadn't told anyone of his arrival back   
in Sunnydale except for a select few----those being Clem, and Sophie, who he   
found snuggling together in his crypt the moment of his return. Something he   
referred to as a "sight I hope to God I never see again before ripping out   
my eyeballs and spitting on 'em." Other than that, he kept his reappearance   
in Sunnydale on the lowdown, except for the times he risked   
inconspicuousness by squatting in the bushes next to the house on Revello   
drive just to catch the glimpse of blonde and brunette heads conversing and   
oftentimes, arguing, in the window. "How'd you hear 'bout that?"

Anya shrugged carelessly, more interested in her half-empty   
glass of vodka-straight up---an unusual choice of drink for a lady, Spike   
considered----than the vampire standing in front of her. "Well we all   
figured. You haven't been all that incognito about it or anything. Plus you   
left you're lighter in the bushes near Buffy's house."

Spike cocked his head. "That could have been anyone's   
lighter."

"Yeah, but most people don't make Buffy's backyard a prime   
smoking venue. That, and Sophie kind of hinted it."

He sighed in frustration. "Balls! I knew that silly git   
couldn't keep her gob shut. I met her for five minutes; she hardly took a   
breather the whole time. Gave me her life's story, she did, some of the most   
bored moments of my unlife. Just allergies and her mother, allergies and her   
mother." He collapsed into a seat next to Anya, who continued with   
expressions of indifference. "So I suppose everyone knows . . . Xander,   
Willow . . . Buffy?" His voice got expressly soft when pronouncing the last   
name.

"Well it's mostly guesswork. They're called the Scoobies, but   
they really don't have the perception to back the title up. Willow suspects,   
though she's not saying anything, Buffy seems to be in a state of denial . .   
."

"Nothing new there," Spike whispered under his breath.

" . . . And Xander . . ." Anya's face soured. "Well, Xander's   
just dealing with the whole thing the way he always deals."  
"Like a stuck-up donkey's ass?" Spike provided.

"Basically."

"So you still on the outs with the boy?" Spike said, wanting   
to veer the conversation from suspicions of his return. That thought struck   
him as ugly and that's not why he reached out to the ex-demon.

"I guess. He's not really . . . I don't really talk to the   
whole 'gang' that much, not anymore, not after what happened, but . . . I   
still help out sometimes, you know, with the slaying? Especially since I've   
returned to old demon-y habits, I'm of extra help. Anyway . . . it doesn't   
make for very civil conversations between the two of us."

Spike lounged back in his chair as he lit up a fag. "So he's   
still not dealing with all the happenings of last spring, eh?"

Anya gave him a sudden timid look. "He hasn't really . . .   
he's still mad about a lot of issues. That, and he's been too busy helping   
Willow get herself back together."

Spike suddenly looked pensive. He had heard the detailed   
report of Willow's chaotic downward spiral into destructive power from Clem.   
How she killed that boy, sought revenge from the other two, then took out   
her power against her own friends and family . . . and all because of the   
great singular tragedy of her fellow lover-wicca, Tara, dying. When he heard   
the news, he fell into a silent and dark mood that could have rivaled Angel   
in its broodiness. "Yeah . . . that was a horrible thing that happened," he   
said weakly.

Anya took a last swig of vodka. "Yeah . . . Willow tried to   
end the world and bring fiery death to everyone in it, Buffy and Dawn were   
nearly killed by plant people underground, not to mention the Magic Box was   
completely destroyed, leaving me, the proprietor, out of a job and the   
comfort of monetary security." The girl still had her priorities skewed,   
Spike mused. But her face softened as she went on. "And . . . and I thought   
maybe it would bring me and Xander back together, y'know? Last time we got   
thrown into one of these apocalypty situations, he proposed. The least he   
could do now is talk to me."

It angered Spike to know that Anya was still pining over one   
whom in Spike's mind, didn't deserve the attention. Xander had been an ass,   
a biased and cowardly one at that, while Anya had been mainly in the right.   
Now look what the poor girl had been driven too----slightly alcoholic   
tendencies in the Bronze. "Look here, pet, you don't deserve Harris. You're   
worth loads more than that, so I say sod 'em!"

Anya gazed back up at him appreciatively and glowed at the   
compliment, but her face soon turned angry. "Hey! None of that!"

"None of what?"

"That!! Making with the compliments and niceness! That's what   
got us trouble in the first place. You all being consoling and attractive   
and manly and smelling nice while doing it! And hey!" She grabbed the empty   
bottle of liquor. "Drunk here! I don't really need a flashback of days   
past!"

Spike looked down awkwardly. "I'm sorry Anya, that's not what   
I meant. I . . . I wouldn't do that again. I'm . . . different."

"Different how?" A more hurt and tired look came over her   
face. " You mean you suddenly don't find me attractive?" Uh oh, now it was   
turning into a drunk vengeance demon scorned. Spike had to get himself out   
of this mess as soon as possible.

"It's not that, ducks! You're as stunning as you ever where,   
it's just . . . I'm just . . . different." He didn't know exactly how to   
break the news that ol' Spikey took a safari for a few months and found   
himself with a brand-spanking new soul. "And plus, I wouldn't because----"

"Of Buffy?" Anya said the words sharply and collapsed back   
into her chair.

Spike stiffened, the way he always did lately when thinking of her. " . . .   
Yeah. Yeah I guess."

"News flash Spike, but just because you're back in Sunnydale   
doesn't mean you have much of a chance with the Slayer."

Spike pursed his lips in anger. "So I got as much chance with   
her as you do with Xander? That's what you're saying?"  
Anya's eyes widened and her face again went from anger to   
despondency. She began to sniff and wrinkle her chin into a quivering frown. 

"I guess," she murmured softly. Spike kicked himself inwardly. Damnit.   
Hadn't meant to make her cry, Spike thought to himself. He awkwardly put an   
arm around her shoulder and eased the tearful lady into his arms. "Um,   
there, there. I'm sure it's not all that bad."

"Yes it is! He won't talk to me, can't even look at me   
sometimes! I-I want to do something to make it better, but I can't think   
what!"

It seemed him and Demon-girl were always getting themselves   
into these situations. Them blubbering and sulking about the tragic comedy   
of their love lives together, both of them sitting around like the King and   
Queen of Love's Bitches. Planning, concocting schemes of how to get back the   
people who obviously didn't want them. Anya began blowing her nose into   
Spike's shirt. "Y-you know what I wanted to do?" she began drunkenly   
rambling.

"What's that, pet?"

"I w-wanted to get him a gift . . . y'know, as they like a   
'peace offering'? In my day it used to be a slain, fatted calf, but I was   
thinking now more of a commercially licensed product . . . like a cell phone   
. . . or a George Forman grill."

"So why don't you, luv?" Spike answered, smiling at her   
drunken childishness.

Anya had began to sob in hiccups by now. "Because I don't have   
the money! I'm not working anymore with the Magic Box all in ruins, and   
hence all my advantage over the whole market of exchanging money for goods   
and services is pretty much depleted. How else do you get a gift without   
money? Bartering is pretty much out these days….."

Spike had already been scheming while Anya cried into his   
shirt. A gift . . . he hadn't thought of that before. Maybe it was a gift   
that would ease himself into the Slayer's good graces.  
Spike peeled Anya off of him, and sat her up, taking her by the arms and   
looking into here eyes. " You know what, pet?" Anya vaguely shook her head,   
wiping away her tears. " I think I may know just the place to get the   
perfect thing to bring our better halves back into our lives. If you're up   
for it…."

Anya smiled excitedly, her eyes shinning brightly. " Oh! That would be   
great. And I'm up for anything and everything. Lead the way." Spike started   
to get up and do just as she suggested, when Anya bent from the middle and   
grabbed the table, letting loose all that alcohol from her system.

As Spike cringed and backed up a few steps, he nodded to himself. It would   
take just about everything he had to win back the Slayer's affections....


	2. Goings and Comings

  
Chapter 2: Goings and Comings

Buffy turned just in time to catch the box Dawn had been holding, which was now halfway to the ground. She caught the edge of it and gently placed it on the ground, then looked up to a shame-faced Dawn.

"I told you it was too heavy for you," Buffy said in her motherly scolding tone.

Dawn's mouth opened in an immediate retort. "I was just trying to help, like you told me to do. It's not my fault all the smaller boxes had already been carried to the porch."

Buffy sighed, noting the way Dawn had said Buffy had more ordered her to help out that asking her. "Dawn, you know we have to get this stuff out sort of quickly. Willow is moving to a new place, and she asked us to help her."

"She didn't ask us to do it all for her while she was gone. It is hers, she could help just a little." Dawn sighed in exasperation, and what Buffy knew wasn't just laziness, and sat down on the box she'd been carting.

Buffy put her hand on Dawn's arm, kneeling in front of her. "Now you want to tell me what's really wrong?"

Dawn glanced up at her sister, then back at her hands, which were nervously fidgeting in her lap. "I just…I don't understand why she wants to leave."

Buffy sighed, knowing that this had been coming. She had felt the same way when Willow had come home from England and announced the news. "She wants to try and make it on her own for a while. She's had someone with her since she was born, her parents, then Oz, then she lived with me at the dorm. After she got with Tara she hadn't been alone since then. She just…wants to prove to herself she can make it by herself."

Dawn threw her hands up in defeat. "Can't she be by herself here?"

Buffy put her arm around Dawn's shoulder, trying to calm her, even when Buffy herself needed the calming. "We have to let her do this. Not only because she's and adult and has the right to do and go where she wants, but also….also because we love her, and need to let her find herself."

Dawn looked up at Buffy, tears in her eyes. "I'll still miss her."

Buffy smiled slightly. "I know, sweetie, I will too. But its not like she's disappearing. She's moving to the apartments just down the street, and we'll see her everyday like we do now.

Dawn looked back down at her hands. "But it won't be the same. She won't be here when I get home anymore."

Buffy stood up slowly, realizing Dawn's down mood was slowly bringing her down as well. "Well, we can't cry over it forever. She's made up her mind, and as her friends we have to respect that. And it's not like I won't be here when you come home."

Dawn looked up and smiled for the first time since Willow had announced her news. "Yeah, that's just what I want, big sister looking over my shoulder the second I walk through the door." She stood up and grabbed one side of the box as Buffy took the other.

"Well, what am I here for besides to torture you?" They carried the box out to the porch and placed it with all the others, and Buffy slowly looked them over. " I guess that's the last one."

"Yeah, guess so." Dawn turned and walked back into the house, and went upstairs to where Xander was busily building the secret gift they had all decided on for Willow. It was a desk made out of willow and it had the imprint of a cat burned into the side of it.

Xander looked up at their approach. "It's coming along. It would come faster if I wasn't building alone, and knew more what I was doing, but, coming it is."

Buffy smiled at Xander's modesty. Over the years he had spent in construction, he had really become great at it. " It looks beautiful. I'm sure Willow will love it."

"Yeah, she will. Especially with the cat on the side." Dawn grinned widely since that cat had been her idea.

"Dawn, don't you have homework?" Buffy said, finally remembering what she had dragged her sister away from to help with the lifting.

Dawn sighed. "How can we get homework on the second day of school? Those teachers really should be talked too. We shouldn't get work at least until the end of the year." Dawn raised her hands in defense at Buffy's harsh stare. "I'm going, I'm going," and before she disappeared into her room, she yelled over her shoulder, " I was just saying!"

Buffy smiled in spite of herself as Dawn shut her door. Xander stood up with a groan after being down on the floor for an hour. " Yeah, I felt that way too, when I was her age. Learning in school, its barbaric."

"Well, hopefully she'll discover her great potential as a genius, and grow to make lots of money to support her old and weathered sister after all her hard years of demon-killing." Just then Dawn let out a screech and there were a couple of loud thuds.

"I'm fine!" she yelled from her room. " Just fell off the bed!"

Xander looked at Buffy. " Let's not shoot too high."

Buffy made a face. "Just what I was thinking."

The two of them made their way downstairs and into the kitchen, where Buffy got them each a glass of water. After gulping the whole thing down, and waiting for his glass to be refilled by Buffy, Xander looked up at her seriously. "Should we be worried about her?"

"Oh, no. Dawn is resilient. She just fell off the bed. It can hurt, I know, but its not like she fell off a king sized."

Xander nodded. "Yes, true, but I was more talking about Willow."

Buffy's eyes widened, and then she looked down into her glass of water. "Oh."

"Well, she was barely back for an hour before she told us she wanted to move; and she already had a place picked out, and she was going to be asking Anya for a job. Don't you think she's moving a little fast?"

Buffy shook her head. " I don't think so. It would be too fast for me, but Willow seems to need this. Independence. After Tara….and then after what Willow did…Giles probably talked to her, which is what lead to this."

"We still don't know what he said to her. She isn't saying."

"Well, its private, its not like we need to know." They both look up at each other, knowing how much the other was dying to know what had gone on in Giles' flat up in London. " The point is Willow is a grown-up, and she's making decisions and choices with her life; she's moving on when we thought she wouldn't make it at all." Buffy looked back at her water. " That was so scary."

"Tell me about it. When I thought she was done for…it was like I couldn't breathe. She's been with me since we were kids. I don't know what I'd do if she wasn't there."

Buffy nodded. " That's probably the way Willow thought when Tara was killed. Like she couldn't go on." Buffy smiled half-heartedly. " But now she is. She's moving on with her life. She took that step forward, and bringing her down with our worries would be like tripping her before she's out the door. So we'll just smile and tell her we support her." Buffy's face turned glum once more. " Then when she's gone we'll go to our rooms and cry our eyes out."

" Now, none of that," Xander said, his voice chipper. " We'll keep with the stiff lips and dry eyes. Being the strong man that I am, I will be happy to offer any shoulders that need to be leaned on." He smiled that goofy grin   
that always made her grin back at him.

"Okay. No crying. My lip will stay firm and my eyes will not water. Giles is coming back soon, we want to be all with the welcome when he arrives."

"Yeah, Giles back. Things seem so much simpler when he is here. I've really missed him. He's like our surrogate mother hen."

"I hope he stays for awhile. With Willow's room open now, maybe he'll just get too comfortable to leave. I still think it was that lumpy couch that drove him away the last time."

Xander grinned. " Probably. But, speaking or people returning, you have heard Anya's suspicions, haven't you?"

"What? About the bunnies forming underground operations to take over the world? Xander, even you should know not to believe her by now."

"Well, again, my mind was going with something else. That of a certain Billy Idol-haired, chain-smoking member of the undead being back in town."

Buffy looked at him sharply and then sighed leaning her elbow on the counter and burying her face in her hand. " Yes, I've heard. I still think that lighter in the bushes could have been anyone's."

"You think it could, or you're just hoping it could?"

"The latter, but I don't know. There are things I wanted to say to him. He just left so suddenly before."

"Yes, he ran off like the cowardly duck that he is before he could get a sound staking from the lot of us."

"That's not what I was thinking, Xander. Though now that you mention it, it doesn't sound like the worst plan." Buffy clasped her cup in her hands, looking into the clear liquid. " I was thinking more of a banishment. Telling him that he was free to stay in town without a dusting if he didn't come to me, and in turn I'd stay away from him. He did care for Dawn, and helped us out a lot of times, I guess that entitles him to something."

Xander looked stricken, like his ears were playing tricks on him. " What it entitles to, Buffy, is a quick death. Minimal pain. He tried to do something awful to you."

Buffy looked up quickly. " I know. I was there, remember? I'm just saying, Xander, you don't know what went on when we were….when we were together. You can't understand it completely, and your hatred of him stems back for a long time. My hatred is something new."

"I don't get, aren't you angry at him?"

"Of course I am. I've been so angry at times I thought I'd scream until my lungs burst, or just hit something until it had the consistency of soup, but I can't waste my time on him. He's a monster that was hiding behind a mask I didn't notice. I was just surprised when he finally took it off." Buffy sighed and closed her eyes. " It's funny, for awhile I thought it was his real face."

"I know what you mean," Xander said, causing Buffy to look up at him. " I thought I knew Anya, then she went and…." Xander made a face that looked so disgusted Buffy would have thought someone was torturing kittens in front of him.

"Slept with the same man that I did," Buffy finished for him.

"Yeah, but its different. You were in pain over things that were out of your control. You were just looking for comfort in the wrong places…"

"Sort of like a loving bride who had been left at the altar and then reverted back to her demon roots." Xander looked up at Buffy, slightly shocked. " You did hurt her, Xander. You hurt her a lot. Just like the pain I was feeling, she was feeling a world of her own." She looked Xander deep in his eyes. " She was just deceived by the same mask I was fooled by."

Xander looked at Buffy as if it was the first time he was seeing her. " You know, I thought that Anya went to him…just to…"

"No, Xander. You got it wrong. We all seemed to get everything so wrong last year." Buffy looked down into her glass. " Maybe it was something in the water." She got up and dumped the contents of the glass down the sink, then walked back over to Xander, who looked like he has just been given all his Christmas presents a day early.

"Then….maybe she still does…want me. Like I want her so badly." Xander looked up at Buffy then with more truth in his eyes than she had ever seen there before. "I did love her, so much. I was just scared that one day that   
love would be shadowed by things that couldn't be fought. And I panicked, and let my fear take me over. But afterwards…I realized that all I wanted was to be with her. In one form or another, I just wanted her with me."

"I know what you mean. And I still believe that she doesn't want anything less. She loves you, Xander, the two of you are just on the wrong page. You need to sort it out, and I'm sure you'll be able too. Someone just has to take the first step."

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Xander and Buffy looked at each other puzzled before getting up and walking to it. Xander reached for the knob, and pulled back the big wooden door to see to people standing there. One was the woman they had just been speaking of. She was smiling expectantly and brightly, looking at him with eyes full of hope.

But it was the second one that draw Buffy's attention. He looked different, and yet so much unchanged. His hair was still that florescent white and his eyes were still so piercingly blue. He still dressed all in black, but yet   
his face looked like it has lost some of that edge it used to have. Now he just looked sort of tired. But his eyes had something she recognized as seeing there so many times before. They were all a mixture of pleading and   
love, and she found herself having to speak before she got lost in them. "Spike."

And just as she said this, Xander also said a word. "Anya."

Anya smiled brightly and waved a bit, like she was on a ship about to depart from the harbor. "Can we come in?"


	3. Back Into the Fold

Chapter 3: Back Into the Fold 

Xander stood, staring at the two visitors, an expression of sort of deadened senses and surprise coloring his face. Buffy recovered quicker and nudged him out of his trance. "Huh---what? O-oh, yeah sure come in," he stammered, stepping out of the way for Anya while motioning her in. Spike started to follow her, but Xander soon stepped back into the doorframe, blocking him. "Um excuse me, but we didn't say any sociopathic rapists were welcome here," Xander cut snidely, rejoicing in Spike's guilt-ridden response as he began to slump out the door.

"Xander!" Buffy exclaimed. No matter how many good intentions Xander was made of, he was becoming tirelessly tactless when it came to Spike. Not that anyone had any obligations to be polite to Spike it was just . . . Buffy gazed at Spike uncertainly and wondered why she _did_ feel an obligation, albeit, the tiniest, almost non-existent one to him, especially after what he did. 

"_Attempted_ rapist," Anya corrected brightly, sounding as if this redeemed Spike to the manner of a saint. Xander alternated incredulous glances at Anya and looks of pure hatred at Spike. 

"Well you heard me, perioxed scum. Out! Make with the track marks. No one wants you here."

"_I _want him here, Xander," Anya insisted firmly. "He's with me, and if he's not welcome, I'm not welcome." Xander cast a sullen and spiteful glare.

"Oh. I see. So not so different from days of yore huh? You and him, buddying it up, making with the horizontal mambo in other venues of retail?" 

Anya frowned desultorily and Spike straightened, incensed. "Careful Harris," he warned, the old edge of danger lurking in his voice.

"Or what? What are you gonna do to me, Spike? Try gnawing me to death? Use me for your teething toy? I'm not really shaking in my boots here, bud."

Spike turned to Anya. "I can make a wish on him right? Grant him penile warts and flamey, burning infections? You can do that right?"

"I could. Let's just see how this meeting goes first though," Anya whispered back conspiratorially. 

"Stop that!" Xander interrupted. He looked despairingly at Anya. "Look, if he comes with the package, I'm sorry. I want to talk to you, but not with him around, if that's the way it goes you can leave---"

"He can come in," Buffy said softly. All three turned to her in surprise. Spike gazed at her in the kind of heartbreaking, awed stare he gave her when he first saw the night she came back. It gave her chills then, as well as now. She looked at him resolutely and any notion she had about feeling nothing for the vampire before her faded. Now she just had to figure out which feeling it was. Xander just gaped at her, appalled. She returned his look with a steely, expressionless one. 

"Buffy can I talk to you?" He motioned her away from Spike and Anya and hunched over near her secretively. Buffy crossed her arms and Xander began speaking to her with his characteristic emphatic gesticulating. "Okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but . . . has your brain self-imploded and begun to trickle out your eardrums?! This is _Spike_ we're talking about."

"I know that! And I'm saying he can come in. I knew it had to come to this eventually." She gave a tired sigh. "I should have known he would come tromping back to Sunnydale."

"Buffy! How can you be so calm and composed about this?!"

"Because I don't have a choice," Buffy hissed. "I could rant and rave and carry on hissy fits about what Spike did to me, but it's pointless. I have to handle this like an adult."

"Handling this like an adult wouldn't count out handling splintery stakes would it? 'Cause I think that would be very mature of you."

Buffy took another serious glance at Spike, who was pretending not to be staring at her and instead conversing with Anya. "I'm not counting out anything just now. But I think we should try approaching this in a civil way first. If wackiness ensues, well then, we'll just see if I have to bring out some necessary stakeage." She said it all in a hushed sort of tone and with a somberly wistful look on her face and for a moment, Xander didn't know if he could believe her. Buffy approached Spike and Anya with strange calmness and motioned them in.

"You um, are welcome in." Anya clambered in first, nervously plopping herself onto the couch as Spike entered a lot more slowly, deliberately, looking at the whole house wonderingly as if he had never seen it before. 

"Umm . . . the lil'bit?" Spike said softly as he gazed around the foyer.

Buffy smiled a little. It had been so long since she had heard that nickname, the nickname only Spike uttered. The gentle Spike, the Spike who had stayed a whole summer to protect her sister from the fires of the Hellmouth. The Spike who loved both her and Dawn. Was this the same Spike? "She's upstairs working on some homework."

"Homework? A little early in the year to be starting with that isn't it?"

Buffy laughed. "She said the same thing. Well . . . not as much said as grumbled but . . ." She and Spike exchanged an extremely uncomfortable semi-smile, which Buffy abruptly broke out as she sat down in a chair. Spike twitched where he stood and looked conflicted, not knowing if any false movement would result in immediate death. Finally he settled on standing by the fireplace. Anya and Xander sat a few feet apart on the couch, averting their gaze from each other. Buffy clasped her hands anxiously where she sat. And they all listened to the deafening silence.

"Well," Anya said, her voice always alarmingly chipper. "This is nice isn't it? Not awkward at all, just a friendly gathering of four old friends, yes four old friends who---" Stares from the others silenced her ramblings. Anya was doing this thing lately where she tried to compensate for being so tersely blunt in her observations by saying the _opposite_ situation. She learned a long time ago that part of being human meant giving into the number one human characteristic---denial. She was just practicing this new anti-observant nature of hers, the one where she didn't say what was going on, but instead, what _should_ have been going on. It was as well received as her old nature. 

Buffy sighed. "This is . . . weird," she said lamely.

"Really? I going for 'suicidal'," replied Xander.

"We came to talk," Anya explained. 

"Really?" Xander was giving the evil eye to Spike. "This guy talks? He's not too busy _raping girls_?" It was already up and started. Spike lunged towards Xander menacingly and Xander looked about ready to take him up on his offer but Anya separated them. 

"Xander, enough!" Buffy exclaimed exasperatedly.

"Buffy---"

"No Xander, I mean it! This thing you have with Spike----it's tired."

Xander stared at her. "This coming from the attentions of his sex offenses?"

"Oh sod off, you bloody ponce!" Spike exploded, frustrated.

"Okay, so I see 'talking' not really going on here," Anya said, trying to mediate. "And we figured that. Which is why we thought it would be a good idea to go to dinner."

Buffy and Xander whirled around towards Anya in surprise. "Who's 'we'?" Xander questioned.

Anya shifted uncomfortably. "Me and . . . Spike. But see, it wouldn't be _me and Spike_, it would be me and you and Spike and Buffy----"

"Anya, we've got it," Buffy interrupted. "But dinner?"

Anya straightened. "Why not? You and Spike obviously have issues, and so do Xander and I. So if we all have issues, why not double up, talk it all out at the same time whilst enjoying a good meal. Eating and talking, two not entirely sucky activities."

"So what is this, a double date? Because if it is, it's like out of some non-existent nightmare where I wake up in a cold sweat." Xander trembled at the prospect.

"Well if that's what you bipeds are calling it these days," Anya chimed. "Come on. It's not a totally horrible idea. A little conversation, a little risotto, what's the big?" She simply couldn't understand all the stoic glances she was rewarded with.

"You know Anya, maybe this wasn't such a good idea," Spike mumbled.

"For once, I'm inclined to agree with-----_that_," Xander spat.

"Spike!" Anya looked at her partner-in-crime dismayingly. "We . . . we already planned this, the . . ." she neared him and whispered to him roughly. "The _gifts_!"

Spike nodded, but looked over at Buffy sadly in another penetrating glance. "I'm just thinking that maybe we---_I_ didn't think this through . . . maybe . . . maybe it's too late to repair the damage I've done." Xander was about to open his mouth to agree, but Buffy hastened his comments with a hand motion. She had been staring back at him, silent and eerily expressionless the whole time. 

"Maybe it's a good idea," she said, never taking her eyes off Spike. Anya brightened, Xander fell back into alarmed disagreement.

"Buffy!" 

"What? Anya's right. A lot happened last year. And maybe . . . _now_ we can find ways to deal with it . . . to heal. We owe ourselves that." She made sure to make her point firmly as she gazed at Spike. "Closure." Spike seemed to painfully understand everything eclipsed in that little word and nodded back slowly.

The occupants of the living room had self-consciously turned silent once more, but thankfully, the thunder of a teenager galloping down the stairs interrupted what could have turned into an eternal stretch of awkwardness.

"I finished my homework!" Dawn called brightly, heading for the kitchen. "Wasn't that hard, just an essay about what we did this summer. I just basically put 'slept, ate, tramped around like an immobile slug'." She giggled heartily as she came back to the living room, bearing cookies. "I couldn't really put down the tidbits about me training up and slaying vampires though, I don't think Mrs. Olsen would have really gotten that----" A cookie tumbled out of her slackened mouth when she caught sight of who was standing apprehensively next to Anya. "Spike?" she whispered.

He turned to Buffy. "You didn't tell me she was _slaying_," he said, an eyebrow cocked in concern. Buffy shrugged.

"Spike!" Dawn continued mumbling incredulously. "Y-you're . . ."

"Back," he finished with a small, nervous smile. "How are you, Nibblet?" He rubbed the back of his neck uncertainly and shuffled his feet about. He had been aching to see Dawn ever since he stepped in the door, almost as much as he had to see Buffy. Dawn was the only person in the universe he was sure who loved him, loved him with that pure, undying, child-like, idealistic, adoring kind of love. The kind of love that placed the object of the affections in a position of eternal "Knight-in-Shining-Armor" status, the kind of love----

"What are you doing here?" she snarled darkly, interrupting his illusions of her welcoming him back in a joy-filled embraced. He looked a bit jarred for a second, unprepared for such a hostile response. 

"Why, um, I-I'm back. It should be pretty apparent----"

"I know, but _why_ did you come back?" Dawn's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and Spike suddenly felt hopelessly lost for words. 

"I-I . . . I thought you'd be happy, Platelet---"

"Happy?" she said flatly. "Happy that you'd show up after months of never calling, never telling us where you were? Happy that you can just be 'oh hey, I'm back' after just up and leaving without so much as 'goodbye'? H-happy that you can even _be_ here after what you . . . _did_ to my sister?!" Her eyes were shining now, her chin jutted out in anger. Spike seemed overcome with a look of pain as Buffy tried swallowing the sudden lump in her throat. It's funny how Dawn was so much like her, yet so much simpler as well. Dawn was never burdened with the convoluted sense of morality the way Buffy was. She was young, but clear-headed and intelligent enough to see things for what they were. She never saw Spike as the cookie-cutter mold of 'evil vampire' Buffy put him in, although she knew that it was more complicated than that. Dawn loved Spike, just _Spike_, and she expressed it. Now she was rightfully angry at Spike and she was expressing it. Buffy wished she could break it down as easily as her sister. 

"Dawn, I---" Spike was still lost and grappling for anything to say to redeem himself.

"What? Thought you could just come back and I'd forgive you for what you've done?" She approached him and looked at him earnestly, a hint of the old tenderness lurking beneath her hardened anger. She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes and for a moment, she was almost pleading with him, trying to find that old white knight she knew. "Why did you do it, Spike? I-I thought you c-couldn't . . . that you weren't _capable_ of . . . I _trusted_ you, with my life, with my sister's life . . ."

Spike was beginning to tear up himself and looked at her speechlessly. "Dawn---"

"I guess I should of listened to them all along when they said that you were a monster," her voice grated as she hardened again and turned away with a rebellious shake of her long brown mane as she ran back up the stairs and slammed her bedroom door.

Everyone fell victim to the inexorable silence again, especially Spike. He stood shaken and shocked after Dawn's display and was visibly wracked with guilt. Buffy just stared at her hands, tears welling up in her eyes as well as she quietly sat stiffly on the couch. Even Xander, who could have taken this as an opportunity to cut into Spike with usual fervency, was appropriately quiet. Only Anya would have what it took to try to brightly salvage what was left of the evening's ruins.

"So Thursday at 8 sound okay?" 


	4. Reflections

Chapter 4  
  
Buffy stood in her room, watching her motionless reflection in her mirror. After her frenzied disfigurement of her hair nearly six months ago, it had finally begun to grow out again, and now lay neatly curled and styled around her face. She had spent little time on her makeup, but never really did, thinking natural was better. She looked at the room reflected behind her, at the dozen or more outfits strewn across the floor and bed. It had taken her close to an hour to pick this ensemble, and now that it was on, she was thinking it hadn't been the best choice. She was wearing a black dress, short and sleeveless, maybe a little low cut. And it suddenly looked too date-y. That wasn't what she was going for, and she was now thinking maybe she should change….  
  
"Xander's here." A second reflection suddenly appeared in her mirror, and she smiled weakly at Dawn.  
  
"Tell him I'll be just a minute."  
  
"It's done," Dawn said as she plopped onto Buffy's bed, scooting the piles of clothes over for space. "I thought you'd need a few minutes….maybe a pep talk or two."  
  
Buffy smiled with more strength this time. "Thanks, Dawn. But I'm okay." She frowned at her outfit. "Is this right? Should I be all dressed up and hair-done when it's just Spike? I mean this isn't a date!" She said quickly. "Just a get together of four…sort of friends that are going to work out their differences. Nothing major."  
  
"No, nothing major. You know, an ex-demon that's no so "ex" any more. A groom that left his bride at the altar. And an attempted rapist that was supposed to care about you….and other people."  
  
Buffy looked at Dawn, who was staring down at her shoes. Sometimes she wondered if what Spike had done had hurt Dawn more than it had hurt her. Buffy was an adult. She knew what Spike was, and as much as she tried to convince herself he wasn't evil, he had proved her wrong. But Dawn had looked up to Spike, loving him completely, and thinking he loved her back. And then he had gone and shown her that her love had been misplaced, and she was left wondering why she had never noticed it. Buffy didn't know what to say to her though. Nothing she could think of would take away the pain.  
  
"Spike is a demon, Dawn." She finally uttered, trying to make herself believe it as much as her hurt sister. "We should have realized that we couldn't expect great things from him."  
  
"But he did do great things!" Dawn exclaimed. " He helped you in your save-the-world crusade lots of times. He was here for me and the gang when you were….gone, and he fought a god for us!" Dawn looked down at the floor. "What changed?"  
  
"I don't know," Buffy admitted. She had been constantly wondering the same thing. How had he gone from a person that wanted to help her and claimed to love her, to someone who could hurt her so deeply. But that was just it, he wasn't a person. She had to stop thinking of him that way.  
  
"Why is he trying to come back? To be with us again?" Dawn asked, standing up and walking over to stand next to Buffy.  
  
"I don't know that either. I wish I could give you answers, Dawn, but I don't have them myself." She finally turned away from the mirror and looked at Dawn, trying to make her smile natural. "That's what I'm doing tonight. I'm going to get answers. Even if takes a beating from me and my pent-up rage to get them out."  
  
Buffy started towards the door and glanced out, to where she could see Xander pacing at the bottom of the stairs. At least she wasn't the only one nervous anymore. Buffy whirled back to look at Dawn uneasily. "Do these shoes look okay?"  
  
  


Xander and Buffy sat in silence in his car, both too caught up in their worries about tonight to talk to each other. They were meeting at the restaurant, which they thought was best. They hadn't wanted to start fighting before they even started the date, which had looked very likely.  
  
Buffy sighed and leaned back in her seat. There she went calling the night a date again. And it wasn't a date, she assured herself. Just a friendly get-together….with a possibility of ending in fists and blood.  
  
She groaned inwardly as she saw the restaurant up ahead, and hesitated before getting out of the car after Xander had parked.  
  
"It will be okay, Buffy," Xander said, breaking the silence right before they got out.  
  
"Now why are you so calm?" Buffy asked with a teasing smile.  
  
"Well, I have gone through extensive pep-talks in front of the mirror and finally have gotten myself to a state of numbness. I am hoping the night goes quickly, before it wears off." With that he got out of the car as Buffy sighed. Why hadn't she thought of that?  
  
They walked up to the building where Xander opened the door for her and she stepped into the air conditioning and the music that was supposed to be calming, but yet just set her nerves on end. She kept her eyes on the hostess, who smiled at them as they approached.  
  
"We're here to meet some…people. It's a reservation under Anya Jenkins," he said.  
  
The hostess looked down at her list, then smiled knowingly. "Ah, yes. We have a special table for you this evening." She picked up two menus and barely gave Xander and Buffy the time to exchange worried and anxious glances before they were forced to follow her or lose her.  
  
She led them all the way through the restaurant until she came to the back doors. She held them open for Buffy and Xander to walk through, and then hurried on through herself. But by then,

Xander and Buffy no longer needed a guide to know where they were going.  
  
In front of them sat a table, with a lace cloth over it and four glass chairs sitting around it. There was a vase with a rose in the center of the table, as well as two candles. Buffy looked at the vacant table, then to the hostess. "I didn't know this restaurant had outside dining."  
  
"Oh, not usually. But your dates requested this special." She laid down the menus and lit both of the candles before smiling once more and wishing them a pleasant evening. She then hurried off.  
  
Xander and Buffy seated themselves and looked at each other. "Well…" Xander said. It had been a minute and forty-three seconds and already they had ran out of conversation.  
  
"I wonder why they're late."  
  
"Oh, we're not late!" A voice said from behind them. They turned to see Spike and Anya hurrying toward them. Anya was dressed in a very loud red dress and smiling very cheerily as usual. Buffy's eyes were more drawn towards Spike though, despite Anya's eye-catching dress.  
  
He was dressed in a suit. Nothing fancy, just a black suit with no tie, but she couldn't take her eyes off of him. Mostly because she barely recognized him. Last year he had tried to go with different outfits other than his signature black, but she couldn't help but think that he had finally hit the mark with this suit.  
  
She turned away from him as Anya quickly sat down. She smiled. "We aren't late," she repeated. "We were just waiting for you over by the pond. " She pointed to the small body of water in the direction they had come from. "You were the ones that were late, we just got bored and went to throw tiny pieces of bread at the ducks. I don't know how the elderly can entertain themselves all day with that sort of thing, I find the activity entirely overrated. So, how are you?"  
  
Buffy nodded and smiled at Anya's apparent lack of anxiety over the whole event. "Fine. This…" She looked at Spike as he finally sat down next to Anya. "…is lovely. How did you set this up? The…outdoors and everything."  
  
"Oh, it was very expensive," Anya assured them quickly, as if telling them that made it so much more romantic and impressive. "We had to do a bit of begging, and I'm not ashamed to say I had to show a bit of cleavage, but now we have a nice dinner, away from other people."  
  
Buffy looked from Anya to Spike. "Why would we want to be away from other people?"  
  
"Well, we just thought if words came to blows, we didn't want any words yelled at high-pitched tones to fall on young and impressionable ears. Like kids….or waiters."  
  
Buffy nodded understanding Anya's blunt, but thoughtful point, and looked at the rose on the table. "Uh….I found that in the grass over by the pond," Spike said quietly. "There was a bush, and…I thought it would look nice."  
  
Buffy looked from the pale red rose to Spike, who was looking at her imploringly, and smiled slightly. "It does. This whole thing is wonderful. I'm glad you did this, because…there are things that I'm sure we all want to say."  
  
"Oh, yes!" Anya jumped in. " There are many uncomfortable accusations and declarations to be made, but I was thinking we could enjoy our rather expensive and not completely un-nutritious meal before we start all the fighting and the yelling."  
  
As everyone agreed to Anya's suggestion, Buffy couldn't help but envy Anya's outlook on the whole thing. The way she saw it, there had been awful things done in the past by the four people sitting together, and the only way to work through it and move on was to have the arguments, possibly the fights and fist-to-cuffs, and that was all there was to it. Buffy saw the whole thing as a headache. Something that needed to be done, but that she wasn't entirely upset about the prospect of missing it. But she was here now. Some part of her needed this, and she was going to see it through to the end. 

Through every awkward and uncomfortable moment.

Spike grinned slightly at the look the young waiter gave him when he ordered a very rare steak. Even thought he now had a soul, this new outlook on everything around him, he still was a vampire. He still craved blood, and needed it to function, and since not many formal Sunnydale restaurants served blood, he had to settle with a slice of uncooked meat. It made him cringe, just thinking about it, but he couldn't eat nothing. He knew how uncomfortable people got when they were eating in front of someone who wasn't. It was something he'd learned about the human race, but never really understood.  
  
But his mind wasn't really on his food. His mind was only on one thing, and that was the beautiful woman in the black dress sitting to his left. She was avoiding looking at him, and he understood perfectly well her reasons for doing so. He sometimes couldn't believe what he had done himself. Only the memory of her screaming made it all seem real again. As he looked back on that moment he remembered what he had felt. It had been like at the same moment one part of him wanted to hurt her, while another just wanted her to feel what he felt, and still another part just wanted to hold her and stop the pain that he guiltily realized he himself had been causing.  
  
The relationship they had had the year before had been nothing but pain and pleasure. There had really been no emotions in the equation. Just trading off who hurt who. And what made it all worse, was that he had, and still did, love her more than anything. The chip, while not capable of giving him feelings, had been sort of a cage to the demon in him. And while the demon had been caged up, the human left in him had come out, and fallen in love. Just one little happening, realizing he felt love, and it set off a whole chain of events.  
  
First, he realized he cared for someone else, Dawn. He noticed that he that he wanted to help Buffy more, sometimes not just to impress her or be with her, but just to help. He noticed things like sadness and pain when she wasn't around, and he noticed extreme jealousy for one particular farm boy that he would have rather pummeled at the risk of his head exploding in pain, than be like. But still, he had found himself doing good things for others…and not even when he was asked.  
  
The last definite sign that he had changed, it had come to him the day Buffy died. Because even without her, even with the hole he felt in his existence without her around, he had still not left. He had stayed, for another person. For Dawn.  
  
That brought him out of his reflective trance, and as the waiter brought out their meals, he turned to Buffy. "So, how has the lil' bit been doing? I reckon I hurt more than just one person with what I did. More then two…"  
  
He saw Buffy noticeably swallow as she tried and force herself to look at him. Still, all he got was a glance from her green-gray eyes before she answered him. "She'll be fine. She's hurt. But she'll be fine."  
  
"I'm sorry," he finally said to her. " I didn't do what I did on purpose…."  
  
Buffy cut him off with an angry glance. "What? You slipped and fell on top of me and the momentum tried to undress me?"  
  
"Hey! None of that!" Anya insisted harshly. " We agreed: nice dinner, then fiery talk and raised voices. This looks very good. Let's not let it go to waste." She smiled and promptly started to eat. Xander glanced from Buffy to Anya, then shot a vengeful glance at Spike, before following Anya's example, and started to eat.  
  
Buffy was surprised when Spike too started to eat, and she was left as the only one not joining in. But she suddenly found herself not hungry. She didn't come here to eat. Even though it was a restaurant, she came here to talk, and she was going to do it.  
  
"Why?" she whispered. " What made you do that?"  
  
Spike looked at her, even though she was looking down at the pasta she'd ordered, watching it grow cold. She could feel his eyes in her, penetrating her skin to where she was too vulnerable to sit like that any longer. She raised her eyes to his and watched his every expression as he gave her the explanation she'd been dying for.  
  
"I never wanted to hurt you, Buffy. That was never my intent. I came to you that night to apologize. All I wanted was for you to understand that what happened with me and Anya was…just a mistake. You yourself told me to me to move on. In some way, I might have just been trying to follow your orders when it came to Anya."  
  
"That is so…." Buffy began to say, but she was surprised when Anya cut her off.  
  
"No, Buffy." She said, for the first time sounding forceful and serious. " Let him speak. We always have to sit back and listen to you. You and Xander, always correcting us and ordering us around. Giving us lectures and reprimands, telling us what we are and what we're doing is wrong. For once, it's our turn to speak too. Obviously the dinner is going to go to waste, at least let it be over something worth while. Am I the only one that wants to hear him say what he's thinking?"  
  
"Yes." Xander looked at Anya, throwing his fork down in anger, trying to make an impression.  
  
"Oh, stop it, Xander. I don't want to hear it either. You were always on me about…."  
  
Buffy drowned out Xander and Anya's rather loud ramblings and turned back to Spike, in a lower voice saying, " I never meant to give you orders. I just wanted you to move on, like I was trying to. Every step I took I found you holding on to me, dragging me back. I thought if you moved on, maybe I could too." She closed her eyes. "I didn't expect it to hurt so much when you   
did."  
  
Spike tried to touch her hand and she jerked it back. He sighed and looked into her eyes again. "I never wanted to do that, sleep with Anya. The night I went there, I just wanted a spell, something to help me move on. And then she pulled out the liquor, and then it all went downhill. The mutual pain we were feeling, the alcohol, the thought that we were unwanted. It was….just a lot."  
  
"You know this wasn't what I wanted an apology for. Not that apology makes up for anything, but it's a start."  
  
"I know that, but Anya, and what we did, I've been waiting to apologize for it. I feel like I let you down in that, and that just set off a whole string of things to apologize for. Like….the bathroom."  
  
"Yeah, good thing to apologize for. Let's hear it."  
  
Spike smiled. " I was stupid, you know that, pet? Crazy over you, and crazy over so many things. Crazy over the fact that I wanted to be with you all the time, just to hold you or see you, and then to know that you didn't return those feelings. I was crazy over thinking that I would walk to the ends of the earth for you, for Dawn, and that you would never do the same for me. Do you know how hard that is? Loving someone completely when they don't love you or care about you?"  
  
"This is sounding less and less like and apology and more and more like an attack on me for not loving you. Give me one reason why I should."  
  
"I'm not saying that, Buffy. I'm trying to tell you what I felt. I can't help it if a little bit of truth is in there too." Buffy looked away from him at that, but he continued. " When you finally gave in, let yourself be with me, I thought maybe there was a chance, a chance that you'd really been lying to me and yourself all along. That maybe you really did love me. I let it go to my head, I s'pose. I let myself believe there was a chance, when there really hadn't been. And every move I made was to try and show you that I cared, that we should be together. Then you….it ended. And it was sort of a shock to my system. On moment I had you, the next you were gone, telling me to stay away."  
  
"You were like a temptation for something that I didn't need, Spike. The only way to get rid of it was to get rid of you. The darkness you offered let me hide, but eventually I had to come back to the land of the living. And you around….just something that made me want to go back into the shadows all over again."  
  
"And if I had cared, I would have known that." Buffy looked up at him sharply. What had he just said? Suddenly she was finding it hard to remember, and he'd just said it. But it had sounded so alien. So—non-Spike. Spike didn't seem to notice it however, and continued on with his story. "Well, when I tried to apologize to you about Anya, and you just shot it down, I guess something sort of snapped. The monster in me sort of let loose."  
  
"New flash Spike, there is only one person inside you."  
  
"That's not entirely true, luv. I have the demon in me, but that's not all that I am. I still have some of the man in me that I used to be. That's the part of me that loves you. And the part of me that is never could have stood to watch you get hurt. But the demon, it was sort of being dragged around by a leash, and got tired of it. And I couldn't hold it back, no matter how much I loved you."  
  
"So what's to stop you from doing it again? Hurting me? And how can I trust that I'll be able to stop you next time?"  
  
Spike looked down at the grass beneath them. There was something that would stop him now. Something back in him that was making him act like a man instead of a monster. But he didn't know how to tell her…or if he even wanted to. He didn't want the soul in him to be the only reason she wanted to be with him.  
  
"Oh, Xander, that's ridiculous," Anya concluded from her and Xander's side of the table. "You know it is! There are bunnies in this world. With their floppy ears and cotton tails." Anya shuddered. "You can't say that there isn't a surplus of them as of late."  
  
Xander smiled. "See, that's what I mean. Even with your odd fear of bunnies, and your strange money fetish, I still love you Anya."  
  
Anya pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest. "Enough to marry me?" she asked angrily.  
  
"Anya…." Xander stopped, realizing he didn't to know what t say. He looked over at his plate of cold food and out of the corner of his eye he saw Anya get up. " Wait!" he called out thinking she was leaving. But she didn't walk to far away and quickly came back, a package in her arms.  
  
"Oddly, I knew a night of dinner and talking would eventually lead to the necessity of gift-exchange." She smiled brightly and held out the package to him. " This is yours….from me."  
  
Xander looked at her curiously while taking the package, but he didn't reach to open it yet. "Why exactly did you do this?"  
  
"What? The dinner? Well, I figured we had to eat, being human and all, and wanting to stay, you know, alive, and since we've had recent relationship problems, I just thought it would be nice to do it all at once. Eating and talking."  
  
Xander shook his head. "No, I mean the present. Why did you get it for me?"

"Well, you haven't even opened it yet! Go on, open it."  
  
Xander looked down at the package, then at Anya who was smiling at him expectantly. So he slowly began to unwrap the box, then tore at the tape. Last, he pulled out all the crape paper stuffing, and looked down at the gift on the bottom of the box.  
  
It was a hammer. It was carved oddly, with designs in the wood. And it had a golden cap on the end of it, and the head was very large, and he could tell how old it was by how worn it looked. But the tool was strong, and very expensive from the looks of it.  
  
"It was used by a carpenter nearly 200 years ago," Anya informed him excitedly. " He used it to build a lot of homes after Sunnydale…well, I don't know if it was called Sunnydale then….but when there was this big fire, a lot of homes were burnt down. The guy built back homes using that hammer for all the homeless people. He's credited with saving a lot of   
lives."  
  
Xander looked at the tool with awe, partly because of the skill involved in making it, and partly from the history it had. "Where did you get this?"  
  
Anya smiled, somewhat nervously, and shifted in her seat. "What do you mean? I got it…where you buy stuff. A store that sells goods. Expensive goods," Anya assured him.  
  
"This is….Anya this is great." He finally took his eyes off of the hammer to look up at Anya. "Thank you. Very much."  
  
Anya smiled a very triumphant smile and Xander wrapped the hammer carefully and placed it back into the box. "You're welcome! I thought you'd like it."  
  
"No, I love it. Really, thank you."  
  
Anya continued to smile, and suddenly it felt like old times with them again. Like their past had just been erased and they were once again happily together, sharing a night with only each other, until they heard yelling from the other side of the table.  
  
"Spike, come off it! You're lying to me! Africa? You went to Africa? Why on Earth would you go there? Long lost monkey pals of yours? Some natives that you lost a bet to? Huh?"  
  
"I went to see a demon." Spike said calmly.  
  
"Why? What did this demon do for you?"  
  
"It's complicated, Buffy. I can't really…I don't want to tell you just yet."  
  
"Fine. Then why were you there for an entire four months? Tell me that."  
  
Buffy couldn't believe it was her as she sat there yelling at the breathless man before her. She sounded jealous! She sounded hurt that she'd been left alone for four months while he was off on some safari in the Sahara. She sounded hurt…and maybe she was. She was hurt he left, just disappeared on her and her sister. This had been building for too long, and now it was bursting open, and it was coming out all wrong.  
  
"I was there…healing."  
  
"Oh right. I forgot. You were the victim. You were the one that had the traumatic experience. You were the one with wounds that needed to be healed."  
  
Spike looked at her sharply, and Buffy realized what she said. Saying that she was hurt meant that he was capable of hurting her. And if he was, then she had to care about him, if only a little.  
  
From the side of her, she heard someone clear their throat, and turned to see Anya whispering to Spike. He glanced at Buffy once before getting up from the table and walking towards the pond. He came back quickly, holding a wrapped present in his hand. He sat down and handed it to her. She looked at it without taking it.  
  
"What is that?"  
  
"It's something that I wanted you to have." He looked down at it somberly. "I guess you don't have to take it if you don't want to."  
  
Buffy looked at the present, then at Spike's sullen face, then reached out and took the present from out his grasp. She set it on her lap, and slowly realized the entire table was watching her. Her fingers shook slightly as she unwrapped the gift, and pulled out its contents.  
  
A necklace. It was old, she could tell that much, but very well preserved. It was gold, maybe not real gold, but it certainly looked that way. It had designs of vines twining around its length, and it had three small stones embedded in it. And she knew by look that they were rubies. It wasn't too big, definitely not gaudy, but it drew attention. It was breath-taking.  
  
"Spike….this…why would you get me something like this?"  
  
Spike shifted in his seat and looked up at her. " I told you. I just wanted you to have it."  
  
"Did you get this in Africa?"  
  
Spike paused, then nodded. " Yes."  
  
"It's….I can't take this." Buffy forced herself to say. She slowly set it back in the box and put it on the table. " You know I can't take a gift like that." she looked away from him, wanting so much to just take it, put it around her neck and thank him. But she wasn't going to let herself.  
  
"I know." Spike surprised her by saying. " Somehow I knew you couldn't let yourself accept a gift from me. It's okay, Buffy. I understand."  
  
"Couldn't let myself accept it? Spike, I'm not taking it because I don't want it," Buffy again forced herself to say, looking away from him. "I don't want gifts from you."  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, Buffy saw Spike move, and she turned to see him standing up, looking angry for the first time since he'd come back. "Fine, Buffy. You know, I thought this would maybe clear the path with us, help to make things just a little better. I've tried to bleedin' apologize, I don't know what to do to make it right again, but I'm trying and you're   
not."  
  
"Maybe that's because I don't want to try, Spike. You can't just come back from what you did. And I'm not even sure if I want you to be able too."

  
Spike looked at her with that look he seemed to always have around her. His eyes looked so sad, like he was lost and would never get back. His face just looked so melancholy, it almost made her want to take back what she'd said, but Xander interrupted her.  
  
"Here, here," Xander added, raising his glass. " It's about time you shoved the fiend's nose in his actions."  
  
"Attempted fiend," Anya added perkily.

Xander turned his anger on Anya suddenly. " Don't tell me you're defending that monster, Anya?"  
  
"Well, he did feel sorry for what he did. You can tell by the puppy-dog eyes and the pouting lips. And he is trying to apologize, so I figure he's making a step forward." Anya glared at Xander. " He is setting a rather good example to follow."  
  
"What? The attempting to rape people? Yes, quite an example."  
  
"No, Xander. The trying to seek forgiveness for actions he clearly realizes were wrong."  
  
"I do, Buffy." Spike added suddenly. " I know I did something wrong. I'm just trying to make up for it."  
  
"And you think gifts are going to help?" Buffy stood herself, picking up the box holding the necklace. " This is so far from what you'd have to do to get my forgiveness, it's almost funny."  
  
Xander slowly turned to look at Anya, his own face showing a lot of the pain Spike's had shown. "This gift…you got it to make me forgive you?"  
  
"Well, I thought it would help clear the path….but Xander you're still the one with the more forgiveness to seek."  
  
"What? For the wedding? Anya, all I've been trying to do is apologize for that."  
  
"And obviously we've come very far!" Anya shouted at him.  
  
"And so have we," Buffy said to Spike. He looked at her, this time with a mix of sadness and anger.  
  
" I can't help that I'm the only one that's trying."  
  
Buffy sighed. " And I can't help that you're the only one that wants too." With that she turned and started away from the table. She made it to the door when she stopped and turned to look back at Xander. " You're my ride."  
  
Xander nodded before glaring once more from Spike to Anya, then turning and hurriedly making his way to Buffy. They left quickly, and Spike and Anya were left standing together by four uneaten dinners, two burning candles, a wilting rose, and four empty chairs.  
  
"They took the presents," Anya said glumly.  
  
  
  


Buffy once more found herself in front of her mirror. She looked slightly different than she had at the beginning of the night, and it wasn't just because her eyeliner and mascara was now smeared by tears. She thought it was partly because after so many months, she now had answers for why she had been attacked, and they had come as such a shock to her system.  
  
He'd apologized, and he'd done it seeming completely heartfelt and truthful. Looking at her with those pleading blue eyes. Just wanting her to smile at him. But she couldn't do that. When one part of her wanted to forgive him, another just wanted to follow Xander's suggestion and get stake-happy.  
_  
I guess Spike was right_, Buffy thought to herself. _There is more than one person inside of you_. And unfortunately, they never wanted to do the same things.  
  
That was why, while she picked the necklace out of the box and strung it around her neck, clasping it behind her hair, one part of her was screaming not to, while another was smiling at her reflection.  
  
  



	5. Vindications and Revelations

"And here's the bathroom, and um, over there is the living room . . . and OH! Over there? That four square feet of space?" Willow grinned impishly with zealous enthusiasm as she gave Buffy the grand tour of her new apartment. "I call that my 'den'. C-can you imagine? Me, owning a 'den'! It's so old English and Giles-y somehow, a den . . . oh, and you gotta see this." She dragged Buffy to the nearby window in excitement. "You know what that is?"  
  
Buffy smiled amusedly and looked at the small window box of African violets. "A small window box of African violets?" she said, her voice flat compared to her best friend's animation.  
  
"A garden!" Willow corrected triumphantly.  
  
Buffy broke into a wide grin now, caught with Willow's infectious perkiness. It had been so long since she witnessed it and to see it now meant more to Buffy than she could easily express by faking awe over a box of flowers. "It's great Will, everything is. You've done a great job with the place." She turned around and surveyed the little apartment carefully. Willow had been working day and night for the past four days to make it perfect and it showed. The whole space was just so . . . Willow-y. Brightly colored lamps, drapes, arty pillows, throws, pictures all set the room on fire, as if a rainbow had stumbled across the room and made its home there. Tinkling Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling, casting warm glow across the whole area. Light seemed to overtake the apartment; it was everywhere, even dancing in the kitchen where Willow had hung multicolored Christmas lights over the refrigerator.  
  
"I like it like that," she murmured softly, gazing at the ribbons of color streaking across the fridge.  
  
"Like it like what?"  
  
"That. Light. I love light. I wanted this whole place to be full of it. I wanted it to burst with it until it couldn't take anymore. I didn't want one ounce of darkness. I figured I had enough of that last year." Her face lost its alacrity for a second as she reflected softly. "I don't ever want to be in the dark again."  
  
Buffy, somber now too, went over and placed a sympathetic hand on Willow's shoulder. "You won't be," she whispered reassuringly. Willow glanced over at her and for a moment, she was searching Buffy's eyes to affirm if that was really true. She looked away quickly.  
  
"Yeah. Yeah I guess." Hurrying to switch the mood to its previous lightness, she stepped back and threw her hands out. "So you like my little bachelorette pad? Okay, so not Mack-Central, not really Anything-Central, but I like it. Not much, but . . . it's . . . mine you know? Just a little something made for me and Miss Kitty the Second." She reached down and picked up the purring feline dancing about her ankles and began cooing to her softly. "The current heir to Queen Kitty Throne after Miss Kitty the First went missing."  
  
"It's great Will, I love it. But from the looks of it, you still have a long ways to go  
  
in the unpacking department." Both gazed at the towers of boxers, still stacked up nearly ceiling high and stuffed in the corner.  
  
Willow groaned. "If I have to unpack one more box, I'm gonna . . . do something emphatically. I don't know what it is, but you better believe it'll be with lots of self-righteous rage."  
  
Buffy laughed. "Well you better start doing something, emphat-o-gal, because these boxes aren't gonna unpack themselves."  
  
"It didn't use to be like that," Willow said absently, still gazing at the boxes. Suddenly she caught herself, realizing belatedly what she was thinking and shook her head at Buffy anxiously. "N-not that I was thinking about doing . . . that . . . b-because I w-wouldn't do . . . that and . . . oh god, Willow, don't think those thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts."  
  
Buffy once again brought her hand to Willow's shoulder reassuringly. "It's okay if you get tempted Willow. I know you would never act on it. But you're allowed to get tempted." She suddenly broke off, turning her mind to forbidden thoughts of her own involving one blonde undead gift-giver. Trust her to over-identify with Willow's post-addiction anxiety. Some things never changed. She tried breaking out of her own thoughts but turning her attentions back to Willow. "So . . . I guess it's still hard?" she said gingerly, touching upon a subject that they all tried to cautiously avoid.  
  
Willow shrugged, trying to look more careless than she felt. But it gave way when she sighed. "Kinda . . . kinda very. Giles prepared me a lot for this . . . and what's to come but . . . I have to admit it's hard trying to take it day by day."  
  
Buffy gave Willow a small smile, her head tilted slightly. "But you do take it day by day. You're dealing with it great."  
  
"I know, it's just . . . sometimes I feel like . . . . oh god I shouldn't even be talking about this," Willow sighed, reaching flippantly for a moving box to avoid the subject. Buffy caught her hand and squeezed it, shaking her head.  
  
"You can talk to me Willow."  
  
Willow hesitated and pondered this as she gazed at her best friend. She used to be able to tell her everything. In high school they shared everything: every secret, every tidbit of crushage, every giggle, every pain. But now it was different. Or so it seemed. She had gotten used to not telling Buffy things in the last year and vice-versa. Buffy had no idea about Willow's descent into the dark underbelly of the black magicks, Willow had no idea Buffy was sleeping with a vampire. She felt they had cut off from one another, gradually and slowly. And she never wanted that. She sighed and began articulating herself awkwardly and painfully. "It's just . . . I feel like what Giles said was true. That after . . . what I did, I would never be the same again. I mean, I can't comprehend what I did and was going to do." Her voice was rising in agitation now, her eyes beginning to shine with early tears. "When I think about it, I just get sick inside a- and empty. And I'm so afraid that Giles is right, Buffy---"  
  
"It's not true," Buffy interrupted calmly. "You are the same Willow. I know things seem tough now, but it can only get better. You'll heal day by day, and you'll forget all the ugliness of the past and you'll move on with your life. You'll be better than ever."  
  
Willow nodded, but a part of her still doubted. It was typically best friend thing to say, but she felt little comfort. She hated those three little words, 'better than ever'. What exactly did that mean? What did 'ever' refer to? To the years before witchcraft, when she was just a shy wallflower with little self-confidence who followed around Buffy as her computer caddie? If not, then it must have meant the years when her Wiccan powers had been growing and burgeoning. For it was largely witchcraft that was attributed for Willow's growing self-esteem. It identified her, made her unique with a purpose. She was no longer just some stepped-on hacker nerd that many of her classmates made fun of. She was a stylish, alternative-living Wiccan who was empowered by the vitality and strength of her craft. And those days were gone. If that was 'ever', she could never be 'better than ever' again. And what was she left with? Was she to return to her bumbling Slayerette ways, crawling to a computer every time Buffy and the rest ordered her to? The empty feeling was returning, but she had to cover it up quick before Buffy became increasingly concerned.  
  
"You're right," she said lamely.  
  
Just then, Xander burst in, his face puffy and red as he stumbled through the room, bearing more boxes. "Make way for me and my manly masculinity," he exclaimed, teetering on his legs as he tried balancing under the heavy weight. "Yes, me with the lumberjack-type burliness, the Brawny paper towel guy strength, the----" he squeaked girlishly as his arms began to give way. "Save me!"  
  
Buffy sighed and grinned, swiping the box away from him easily and putting it off towards the side. Xander stepped back, exhausted, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Well that should be the last of it," he announced, taking deep breaths from the exertion.  
  
"I can't thank you enough for helping me move in Xander," Willow said appreciatively, giving Xander a ginger hug, careful to mind his aching back. "A-and the desk! I can't believe you made it, it's so beautiful!"  
  
Xander straightened, pride overcoming pain. "Oh it was nothing, Will. I just moseyed on down the local lumber yard, realized they didn't carry specialty wood like willow, had to go to the more expensive ritzy lumber yard. Then I had to specially order the wood, find a craft shop that carried designer-made iron brands, then nearly burned off a finger trying to imprint the cat. All in all, really a breeze to do."  
  
Willow grinned. "Well I can't thank you enough, I really appreciate it. In fact, thank you both for helping me out with this place. If it weren't for you guys and Giles, I wouldn't have any furniture to fill up casa Rosenburg."  
  
Buffy shrugged. "It's all right Willow, we understood you were a little hard-pressed for money. I mean, it's just helping out a friend in need."  
  
"I know, it's just with you guys helping me with the furniture, and Giles paying for the rent, I can't help but feel guilty. That's why I'm taking the job with Anya.you know, when we eventually rebuild the Magic Box."  
  
Buffy turned somber and sage-like. "Well let me give you some friendly advice for the time in between now and employment and tell you that the fast-food job market is not the way to go, even if you do feel the urgings for the cash. Sure, it might look glamorous what with the chicken hats and striped pantsuits and name tags, but you'll spend your nights forever trying to do battle with the grease that's seemed to have made a permanent home in your hair and face."  
  
Willow and Buffy exchanged hearty smiles before Willow turned and looked at Xander with eyes full of hope. " You and your.um.construction team are gonna help rebuild, right? In terms of rebuilding the very much destroyed Magic Box? For a fraction of the cost, if at all possible. Like...you know.a family discount?" " Oh, yes. Because the tradition of family discounts has been long standing mostly on part of ex-boyfriends doing large favors for ex-girlfriends." Willow looked at him impishly. " Well, I was thinking more brotherly-like friend does large favor for sisterly-like friend who is in desperate need of a job and just happens to work for friend's ex-girlfriend." " Oh," Xander said. " Well, that's different." Xander and Willow grinned widely at each other, for all the world looking like too big siblings just loving each other completely. " Will do then. I'll get the guys on it soon."  
  
Buffy had all the while been silently thinking on Willow's entire decision to work with Anya, and the whole thing was making little sense. "Willow . . . is that really the best idea? Working at a magic shop, I mean. Isn't that kind of . . . tempting fate?"  
  
Willow sighed, but maintained her awkward composure. "Look I know the implications, okay? I've thought it all out. Recovering Wiccan going through majicks-withdrawal working in a magic shop doesn't sound like the most stable working situation. But I just think that this'll be good for me. In fact, it'll just show how far I've come and how well I've learned to handle myself. And besides, who better to work in a magic shop than a seasoned pro?" Off Buffy and Xander's looks, she hastily added, " . . .Who's now officially retired."  
  
"I'm sorry, Willow," Buffy sighed. "I should be more supportive. I'm just trying to be cautious you know. Wouldn't want a repeat of the chaos from last year."  
  
Willow nodded thoughtfully, if not a little somberly. She knew Buffy was mostly referring to her. Though she understood that they just wanted what was best for her, part of her couldn't help but feel angry at how they were treating like she was a glass doll; a child who couldn't take care of herself and would throw an out-of-control temper tantrum if not properly supervised. She shook her red hair out, trying swiftly to change the subject. "Speaking of past follies, I heard you and Xander saw Spike and Anya last night." She suddenly paused, knowing that had come off as a little less tactful then she thought it would be. "I mean," she cleared her throat. "That you had dinner with them."  
  
Xander made a slightly pained face. "No you were right the first time Willow. It was a bad scene."  
  
Willow frowned sympathetically as she looked from Xander to Buffy. "Well it couldn't have been that bad . . . obviously there wasn't major carnage; you guys are alive. And from talking on the phone with Anya this morning, I take it that she and Spike are too."  
  
Buffy's face went grim. "Yeah, but just barely. My stake hand was seriously itchy by the end of the night." She sank down into the couch with a sigh. "Xander's right, it was a bad idea. I thought . . . I just thought that maybe talking it through last night would let everyone be able to let go and to heal. But it wasn't like that at all. Everyone just ended up making excuses and trying to justify their actions----and they tried to even win us back with gifts! Gifts! As if that could possibly solve the root of our problems and make it all go away!" She shook her head in disbelief, feeling the necklace rub her skin.  
  
"Yeah, about that . . ." Xander shuffled nervously. "I kind of feel bad about taking them. The gifts, I mean. I don't think that was the best idea. We just ditch them and take their gifts?"  
  
Buffy's mouth twitched, and her hand automatically went to her neck. She had been wearing the necklace since last night and had forgotten that she had put on a turtleneck with the special purpose of disguising it. She breathed a sigh of relief. "It's not like we realized we had taken them until we got home. We just kind of stormed off with the gifts in our hands without even thinking," she explained to Willow.  
  
"You could give them back, just a suggestion." Willow suggested.  
  
Buffy and Xander both looked a lot more hesitant than they should have been. "It's such a beautiful hammer though," Xander murmured wistfully. Buffy was still absently rubbing the neck of her sweater.  
  
"You guys! You can't just take their gifts and be mad at them at the same time! 'Oh, I don't want to speak with you, but I will take your gifts'? That isn't fair!"  
  
The two hapless gift-receivers peered at their best friend in surprise. "Fair? Willow, what are you doing, playing devils' advocate?" Xander asked, mostly out of his reluctance to return his hammer.  
  
She shrugged. "Maybe. They obviously were trying to do something last night, trying to seek forgiveness. Okay, so maybe they didn't go about it the best way, but when have Anya and Spike ever been adept in these social situations?"  
  
"Okay Willow, Anya I get. It wasn't even mostly her fault anyway; the only mistake she made was buddying-up with that cadaverous blonde Casanova. But Spike? He nearly did something awful to Buffy." Buffy's face colored slightly and she sullenly sunk back into the couch. "How does fair ever come into the same context with Spike?"  
  
"He did something awful, horrible. But guess what----I did too. And you guys have forgiven me."  
  
Buffy cocked her head in dismay. "Willow, you can't possibly compare yourself with Spike . . . he's a soulless demon, you were in pain, the circumstances were totally different-----"  
  
"But he was in pain too, wasn't he? After being rejected that many times, and especially by you----the one thing on this green earth that actually meant something to him-----he must have been in incredible pain too." Seeing Xander's face go nearly scarlet with protest, she tried redeeming her standpoint. "Okay look. So I know Spike and I aren't exactly one in the same. But for a moment we actually were. I was just . . . this monster, trying to control this dark power inside me. Nothing of humanity could touch me, I was absorbing all this anger and pain and manifesting it in the most horrible way. And it all just started when the one thing that made life living for was taken away." She was gazing down at her hands, her voice becoming increasingly strangled, tears glistening in her eyes. She looked back at Xander and Buffy quickly and tried wiping the tears away. "Kinda like Spike. Kinda exactly." Buffy stared at her best friend, speechless. Not only was it heart- wrenching to see Willow dwell on such previous pain to such a point that she actually felt like a kindred spirit to Spike, but Buffy realized a seed of truth in her words. Spike had said something of the same effect last night.  
  
Buffy had kicked Spike around like a hapless dog last year. She could go from screaming at him and smashing her fists to his face, to crooking her little finger at him and have him come a-running after her. She came to him, nearly every night, seeking something that she knew was probably the happiest moments in his unlife, and promptly tore down his castles in the air the next morning by telling him he was a monster; an ugly, disgusting thing not worthy of her attentions. She had never counted on that day when he would come to actually believe that and show her just how ugly he could be. But being Buffy, she wasn't very well going to agree with Willow. That would mean forfeiting her throne as Queen of Denial. So she resumed rubbing her neck nervously instead.  
  
"That is ridiculous!" Xander exploded as Buffy sat silently on the sofa. "I don't care what you did, Willow, nothing can compare to what that demon---- that thing nearly did to Buffy."  
  
"So me torturing and tearing off the flesh of a guy then turning around and attempting to kill my family and friends, not to mention destroy the world, isn't comparable to what Spike did? At least what he did was an act of passion. Mine was just pure, cold-blooded, premeditated hatred."  
  
Xander was at a loss for words, but as usual, that didn't stop him. "Willow- ---why are you defending him?" he asked helplessly.  
  
"I don't know. Maybe before, when I was shiny, happy Yellow Crayon Willow, I could pretend that I was morally upright enough to call Spike a monster, but . . . I can't very well now can I? Besides, who can truly know what's in Spike's heart?"  
  
"Nothing," Xander spat through clenched teeth. "It's heart isn't even beating."  
  
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Spike hadn't been evil for a long time---"  
  
"You don't just stop being evil."  
  
"Okay," Willow conceded. "You don't. But I don't think that just because Spike was evil, we can still say he is now. I mean, he stayed with us that summer, helping us with the Hellmouth. He would have never done that if he was completely evil."  
  
"Willow! There aren't any percentages with evil! You aren't like . . .78 % evil! You either are or you aren't!"  
  
Willow looked at Xander through slit eyes. "Xander, when are you going to start seeing the whole picture? Okay, so maybe Spike is evil. Or maybe not. The point is how are we to know? We can't look inside Spike and figure what's going on inside his head. And I know actions speak louder than words, but . . . if you guys can't really look down somewhere in your hearts and try to at least give a little understanding of what Spike did . . . then how am I supposed to figure you can give me that as well?"  
  
Buffy and Xander remained silent and Willow sighed and plodded on. "Anyway, all I'm saying is that . . . just wait and see. Maybe Spike has it in him to redeem himself somehow. And I'm not saying we have to do anything about it, I'm just saying . . . don't make it impossible for him to make it better, you know?"  
  
Buffy cocked her head in amazement and a little awe for her best friend. "How'd you get so compassionate?" she asked wonderingly, shaking her head.  
  
Willow smiled softly. "Tara. She used to tell me things like that all the time. She had the best heart of anyone I've ever known. And she liked Spike. So I'm trying to, for her sake."  
  
Buffy nodded, her hand still fluttering near her neck.  
  
  
  
  
  
Later that night, Buffy stood in front of her mirror once more. Buffy seemed to make a permanent home in front of the long mirror in her bedroom. Anyone observing her would have thought that the length of time she spent in front of it would imply vanity, but the fact of the matter was, she wasn't even staring at her own reflection past the one glittering rope of jewels lying across her collarbone. She gingerly touched it, marveling its beauty. The cold touch it brought to her skin reminded her of the gift's giver. Suddenly she sighed; guilty again to be thinking of him, so she quickly brought her hands back to the clasp at the back of her neck. Her fingers struggled with the clasp, but it wasn't coming off. She frowned, and tried turning around the necklace so that she could eye the clasp in the mirror and view it as she struggled with it. But it didn't budge. It was as if the necklace was branded to her skin so that no one motion could ever get it to move. Frantic now, she tried lifting the necklace from her neck, but it remained steadfast and cold on her skin. It wasn't coming off. 


	6. Redemption

Dawn sat in her room, her headphones blaring music while she pretended to be writing. In all honesty, she was thinking about neither. Not about the first big assignment she had due for her English class, or about the new song on the radio she loved. What she was thinking about now, and had been for the last few days, was the newly returned vampire who she has once cared about.

Spike has been home for over three weeks, and the only time she had seen him, he had been there just to win back Buffy's attentions. He hadn't cared about coming to speak to her or trying to earn her forgiveness. Buffy had come first, she always had with him.

Dawn laid her pencil down and flipped over onto her back to stare up at the ceiling, trying to lose herself in the ever-ending whiteness. But she couldn't. The only thing she could succeed at was replaying the scene in the living room that had occurred three nights ago over and over again in her mind. Her coming cheerily down the stairs, then stopping when she saw him. In all her wildest dreams she had never imagined seeing him like that again. Standing there in her house, awkwardly speaking with the woman he had claimed to love and the man that wanted nothing more than to turn Spike into ashes.

She felt again the painful wrench in her gut at the sight of his blue eyes looking pleadingly at her. The way she always remembered them just before she gave in. He could have asked her to jump off the ends of the world, and one look from those eyes would have made her want to do it. But that night all she wanted to do was fulfill the same goal Xander had in mind. That was taking something sharp and wooden to Spike's chest. Preferably around the heart area.

Dawn closed her eyes, wanting to stop the tears she could feel inside her before they came out. They were tears of anger, betrayal, grief and longing. She wanted so much to be able to forgive Spike, just to take what he did and tell herself it was the foolish act of a soulless thing and let herself feel for him the same way she had only months before. At the same time she wanted to run after him, take the skills in slaying she had been learning from her sister, and beat him into the ground until he begged her to stop.

These two conflicting emotions tore Dawn to her feet. She pulled her headphones off and laid them on her bed. She slipped her shoes back on and her jacket, then quietly made her way downstairs. Buffy was still in her room after coming home from Willow's new apartment. Xander had been here earlier, but he had obviously left by now. The coast was clear, and Dawn took her chance to rush to the door and slip easily out.

The walk was short and blurry. She seemed to think about nothing for once, and all she remembered was the pat of her sneakers on the cement sidewalk. She made it to the cemetery quickly, not even having to think about which direction to take, her feet seemed to know the way on their own. She wove through the tall headstones and walked over fallen branches and flowers planted by loved ones to honor those who had passed. She steadily neared Spike's crypt, before she suddenly stopped.

__

What am I going to say? Dawn thought to herself. She had walked all the way here without planning this out, and now she was finding herself slightly panicky. If she did this wrong, she knew she'd never be able to forgive herself. But on the other hand, what was the wrong way to handle a conversation with the man that tried to rape her sister? Dawn set her jaw and clenched her hands into fists behind her. Whatever she did, she was going to stay calm…or as calm as could be expected.

Dawn walked up the stone steps, and then hesitated before knocking on the door. She swallowed her fear and her trepidation, and reached for the knob, and opened the door. 

Spike sat in a chair in the corner of the room, candles lit around him as he read. His back was facing her, but she could see the book in his left hand. As she watched he turned the page and reached out with his right hand for a cup. She caught just a glimpse of the dark liquid in it before it disappeared behind the border of the chair.

Dawn realized he hadn't heard her come in. She had come quietly, but she thought it was mostly because he was lost in his own thoughts, or his book, like she had been recently, that he hadn't noticed her. She left the door open and walked slowly towards him. Before she could say his name, his voice came from behind the chair. " I wondered when you'd be coming by, lil' bit."

Dawn swallowed the name she'd been about to say and shifted where she stood. " Oh, yeah? How did you know that? You a mind reader now?"

She could picture the amused and tired grin he undoubtedly wore even as he set his glass down and laid his book next to it. Then his voice came again. " Because I know you, Niblet. You aren't one to let things lie."

Dawn looked away from the back of the chair, a frown on her face. Where did he get off knowing her? She had thought she'd known him, she had tried too, but he had proved to her she didn't know anything about him, or what he was. How did he dare know what she was? And what she did? She hadn't even known she'd be coming here; she'd had no intentions too. But that was Spike: he always seemed to know everything.

" I wasn't going too," Dawn found herself saying, still not looking in his direction. " I was bored. So I decided to come over, perhaps kill you. Whatever fit into my schedule."

There was a low chuckle and when Dawn turned back, she found Spike now sitting with his chair facing her. He was grinning at her, but his eyes looked undeniably sad. Dawn shifted again, finding impossible to stay still under his penetrating stare.

Long moments passed before either of them said anything. They just stared at each other, their minds each racing with thoughts and feelings too deep to speak of just yet. Finally Spike broke the silence by saying, " I thought about you when I was away. Not bleeding much else to do in Africa, all sandy deserts and dry grassy plains. Not too exciting."

" Africa? You went to Africa?"

Spike cocked his head at her, his lips pursed in slight confusion. " Buffy didn't tell you?"

" She didn't tell me very much about what happened at your…when you had dinner. Of course, I didn't really ask."

Spike shifted himself, his chair creaking with his movements. " I guess she didn't really want you to know. Or you didn't want too."

The silence settled in on them again, and it was a while before it was broken. Spike got up from his chair and took his glass to his refrigerator, placing it inside, then shutting the door. He stood with his back to her for a moment before he started speaking again. " I realize I hurt you, Dawn," he said, using her name for what seemed like the first time ever, though she knew it wasn't. " I didn't want to hurt anyone, that wasn't my goal. I guess I just wasn't thinking."

Dawn didn't say anything, not really knowing what to. She wanted to say something hurtful, something to make him shocked and even more forlorn than he already was. But the part of her that wanted to listen won out in will.

Spike continued. " If you thought, or still do think, that I didn't care about you, or Buffy, for that matter, you're dead wrong. I do. I can't help that I was a bloody idiot, human mistake, I guess."

" You're not a human," Dawn said, finally speaking. " You aren't one and you never will be."

Spike kept his back to her, but his voice became slightly defensive. " That doesn't mean I never was one. I was human. Born to a human mother, raised by a human. I just died early. But I've lived long. That doesn't mean I am immune to mistakes. Human weaknesses that I've always had, will always have."

" A human that did what you did would still be a monster. What you did was evil, no one with a soul does that. They can breathe and look like a human, even have what constitutes as a human soul, but they aren't if they can let themselves do that. I understand you were a demon, Spike. I understand you still are. In some way, that may even allow you to have done what you did. But I don't think I can forgive you. Ever."

Spike straightened, even as tears stung her Dawn's eyes. _So much for staying calm,_ she thought to herself. She had to say what she just had. She needed to make it clear to him that he could say anything, but the chances were very good she would never condone his actions.

Spike turned to her, and for a second, she thought she saw tears in his own eyes, but realized they were just the tears in hers. He smiled halfheartedly at her. " Somehow I figured that too." He motioned for her to sit down, but she didn't move. Just looked at him with a mix of hatred and sorrow, but she tried to keep it from her expression. She didn't want him thinking he could smooth talk her into caring for him again. Or just talking her out of hating him.

" Niblet, you don't have to just stand there glaring at me. I understand you're angry, wouldn't make sense if you weren't, but I'm betting you have more important things to do."

Dawn sneered at him. " What, you can't take a little glarage?"

Spike grinned at her. " No, I can take all you can throw at me, luv. Just don't want you wasting your time on me." He sank back into his chair, and raised his book to eye level, starting to read again, and Dawn took a step towards him.

" Why would glaring at someone I dislike be a waste of my time?"

" Well, might not be. I'm just getting you probably have a bit of homework that needs doing. Am I right?"

Dawn looked from her shoes, then back to him. " Just a little bit. But it's not like its due in five minutes or anything."

Spike seemed not to hear her, and set his book down as he talked on. " I'm also guessing you didn't come here with a smile and a pat on your head from Buffy? She's probably completely in the dark about your whereabouts."

Dawn rolled her eyes and shifted her weight uncomfortably. She had the distinct impression that she was being read as if she were a book. " She was up in her room the last time I saw her. If I had come over and chopped your head right off like I had initially planned, I could have been home by now and Buffy would never know I was gone at all."

Spike looked at her in mock disgust. " Yeah, but decapitation is a bleeding messy thing to deal with, and those red stains blood leaves is bloody hard to get out of sunflower yellow."

Dawn looked down at her yellow tee and suddenly found herself smiling along with Spike, even though she was trying to keep it off her lips, and out of her mind completely.

Suddenly it felt like this spring and winter had never happened. They were back in the summertime the year before, when Buffy was gone and Spike had sort of settled in as her familial figure. Someone to look up to, to get guidance from. And things hadn't changed one bit. Before she knew what was happening, Spike was less than a foot away, looking her straight in the eye, the pleading there almost too much to fight.

" Dawn, I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm not asking anything of you; you don't owe me anything. I just want you to know that I—" Spike stopped and stood to his full height, looking very uncomfortable and embarrassed, and Dawn just stared at him, completely bewildered. Then Spike looked back at her suddenly and gently grabbed her arm. " I love you, Dawn. Just like I tried not to love Buffy, I tried the same on you." He smiled ruefully. " I guess I just can't stand up against the undying Summers charm."

Dawn once again found a smile curving across her lips. She felt tears sting her cheeks, and quickly swiped them away. " Why?" she asked softly. Spike started to speak but she cut him off. " Why can you do that? Why, when I want nothing more than to glare at you and hate you very much, can you make me like you again?"

Spike grinned at her. " Well, you see, that's part of _my_ charm."

Dawn laughed through her tears. " I don't want to like you, Spike. But you make it too hard to hate you. You did horrible things. But I can't see you doing anything like it again—mostly because if you try it, I will break out some of my new Slayer moves on you."

Dawn found herself suddenly reaching out and hugging Spike, her arms wrapping around his small and tight stomach, and then feeling his hands on her back, hugging her lightly. They stood like that for a moment until his voice once more burst in on the silence.

" Slayer moves?" his asked quizzically. Dawn smiled.

For the next half and hour they talked. She told him everything that had happened in his absence and he in turn told her most of what had happened in Africa. Telling her about how he had hid in the cargo hold of a plain there and then hitched a ride on a boat coming back. He told her how hot it had been and about the wildlife he'd seen, and she listened attentively, all seeming to get better with each spoken word.

Finally Dawn glanced at her watch and she stood from her laid back position in Spike's chair. "It's 9:30, I have 2/3 left of my English paper to write. I have to go." Even Dawn noticed the thick hesitation in her voice. She wanted more of this. More talking and listening, asking and answering. More getting to know each other again. But Buffy would definitely be less than pleased to see Dawn coming home after ten o'clock: her curfew.

" All right, lil' bit. Don't want to keep the Slayer waiting. And I don't think I have to tell you that it would be less than wise if you told her where you've been…" Spike let his words trail off, raising his eyebrows at Dawn to make sure she knew she wasn't to go blabbing to Buffy.

" Yeah, I got it. Not like I want her all over me about it either." Dawn turned and started towards the door when Spike called out her name. She turned back to see him heading back to the corner where the fridge stood. He reached on top of it, however, and walked back to her with a brown bag.

" Here, I bought this for you in Africa." Dawn looked up at him, perplexed. He obviously took her look as a different meaning because he rolled his eyes and sighed. " All right, I nicked it, but it was all with the best intentions." He smiled and held it out to her. " Just take it."

Dawn laughed slightly and reached out for it, when there was a slamming noise behind them and they both jumped and looked around. " Don't you dare," a voice came from the silhouette of the person in the door. The person took a few steps forward, and the light hit Buffy's face, and it was not exactly the expression of a loving sister Dawn saw before her.

Buffy glowered at Spike, her expression presumably pure hatred. Dawn was completely motionless, as was Spike, as Buffy made her way towards them. Dawn was expecting anything, a very sound telling-off, a bloody fight most likely ending in a pile of ashes and a victorious Slayer, or maybe even the supreme quarrel of the century, but none of those happened.

Instead, Buffy walked right up to them, all the time looking at Spike, until something akin to a pout crossed her lips and her eyes looked plaintively at him. Her hand reached up to a beautiful necklace draped over her collar bone and Buffy shook the piece of jewelry, while in the whining voice of a child yelled, " It won't come off!"


	7. Out In the Open

Chapter 7: Out In the Open  
  
Spike sat back, too amused to be shocked with fear for one who could so easily end his existence with a quick whip of the stake. Settling back into a chair, he smirked lazily and lit up a fag. "Nice to see you too Slayer."  
  
"Excuse me? 'Too' implies that I said something about it being nice seeing you. And it's not. It's compellingly not. So cut the crap and tell me how the hell to get this necklace off!"  
  
Spike maintained a smug expression, chuckling softly as his slender fingers flicked pieces of ash into the still air of the crypt. "I thought you said you couldn't accept my gifts."  
  
Buffy gaped at him, still in hysterical girlishness. "Do you want a one-way ticket to Dustville? Cause I've got the end of a stake with your name on it."  
  
Dawn neared her enraged sister in confusion. "Buffy what's going on? What are you talking about?"  
  
"What am I talking about? Death, eminent death for this sorry denizen of the undead here." The Summers' Evil Eye was being administered, but Spike merely continued snorting with laughter.  
  
"So what, you think you can just storm in here in self-righteous rage and your prattly Slayer witticisms just cause you can't work the necklace clasp? Color me terrified luv."  
  
Buffy was flustered beyond homicidal rage and grasped her neck with frustration. "Spike! This is serious! It won't come off!"  
  
Spike sighed and swaggered up to her. But some of the cockiness drained out of his face when he was a mere foot away from her, his hand nervously fluttering near the golden sheen of the skin of her collarbone. Getting close to her always did this to him, but especially now more than ever. The last time he was ever this close to her resulted in one of the most painful altercations in both of their lives. He had missed this; the overpowering scent of coconut and vanilla and lavender that was with her always, the warming effect her sun-kissed skin had, the blinding sunlight eclipsed in her honeyed hair, all the things that were always evident to him, but especially potent and weakening when he was within a four feet radius of her. Sometimes he wished he could just find the antidote to the poisonous intoxication she provided. Now more than ever, since he was wary of the consequences of his enormous attraction to Buffy, judging from what had happened in the past. It had hurt him before as a soulless demon; as a souled one, it would have killed him. Gently, ever so gently, he put one finger to the sensitive area between her long neck and chest and nudged the necklace. She straightened as well, trying desperately to ignore the waves of electricity that washed over her with the semi-touch. Biting her lip, her eyes fluttered closed as Spike's cool finger lightly outlined the swath of her clavicle in an unintentionally tender caress, travelling the continent of suddenly flushed skin.  
  
But a frown began burrowing in his firmly chiseled face. The necklace wasn't budging from where it sat on her neck. Not one shake or shimmy. He tried lifting it up from her skin, but that only resulted in her eyes flying open while yelping loudly.  
  
"Ow! Oww, I said ow! Owwage there, that's a sign to stop what you're doing!" She tore away from his hands and covered up her neck protectively. Dawn gingerly touched the glittering jewelry with wonder.  
  
"Wow, that's amazing . . . it's like . . . glued on."  
  
Buffy turned and gave her sister a pointed glare. "And to make a bad situation even worse, introducing my sister, Little Miss Obvious Much."  
  
"How did this happen Buffy?" asked Spike, with one incredulous eye on the necklace.  
  
"I figured I would ask you, Spike, since you're such the willing benefactor of these jewels and all. Care to tell me what you did to them?"  
  
Spike's eyes widened with defensiveness. "Me? Why would I bloody do anything to the necklace?"  
  
"I don't know, maybe it's your half-baked idea at revenge or something? Some dumb immature prank for thinking that somehow you were the wronged party?!"  
  
He just began to chuckle again with amused reproach. "You think I put a hex on the friggin' necklace? I was so consumed with vengeful rage that I covered it in rubber cement? Come on, I was a Big Bad, the scourge of Europe in my day. I do have evil standards to uphold. I'm not one for adolescent school boy capers. I haven't touched the necklace from when I first got it to when I gave it to you."  
  
"And where did you get it?" Buffy asked forcefully, her arms crossed.  
  
Spike hesitated for a moment. Shuffling his feet, he gave a quick cursory glance at Buffy, which she immediately regarded with suspicion. "Well . . . um, y'know, I already told you. . . I got it in Africa." He shrugged his shoulders restlessly.  
  
"Africa's a pretty big continent, Spike. How about narrowing it down for me?"  
  
"I got it in a . . . shop."  
  
"Let me guess, the Little Shop of Horrors?" she sighed. "Come on Spike, where did you really get the necklace? Or should I say, steal the necklace?" Dawn frowned and grasped the brown paper bag Spike gave her even tighter.  
  
Spike smirked at her. "You think you know me so well, Slayer?"  
  
"I know you enough to know you've never paid for anything in your whole unlife. So tell me . . . where . . . did . . . you . . . get . . . it?" She punctuated each word dangerously.  
  
"Look, I already told you! A shop! One of those utterly forgettable stores with . . . goods. I don't know what else to tell you!"  
  
"You don't remember anything? Not a name, not a face? People don't go wandering into stores blindfolded or forget everything about the place." Buffy was seeing right through Spike's little charade.  
  
Spike threw his hands in the air helplessly. "But I do! I'm not a woman, I don't keep a running score card of all the shops I've been to!"  
  
Dawn suddenly spoke up, struggling not to sympathize too much with Spike despite their recent reconciliation. "Spike, this looks serious. We don't know what this necklace is doing to her. I mean, what if it's magic that's causing this or something?" She again poked at Buffy's neck while Buffy tried swatting her hands away. Dawn turned back to Spike. "Maybe if you know about where it came from, it would help us figure out why it's . . . all . . . stuck to her."  
  
Spike sighed but paused as he alternated his nervous gaze from a seriously solemn Dawn to her enraged sister. Despite the two extremely different expressions coloring both the sisters' faces, he felt affection and love for them both. He would never, ever, wish anything the slightest bit unpleasant on them. Buffy might hate him and Dawn might have lost trust in him, but that didn't stop him from wanting to be their eternal protector. Taking a deep breath, he dropped his cigarette to the floor and ducked his head as he ground it into the floor. Looking back up, his face was unusually somber. "All right. I'll tell you."  
  
  
  
  
  
Anya was glad she only sublet-ted her old apartment instead of giving it up entirely. When she moved in with Xander a few years back, the idealistic side of her figured that was the last she'd see of the stuffy old apartment. The vengeance demon side of her, however, had kept the apartment sublet-ted lest Xander turn on her like many of the hapless males she wreaked havoc on for thousands of years----kind of a just-in-case type precaution. So when that actually happened and she was forced to return to her old abode, both parts of her were conflicted again. The idealistic side was understandably broken and destroyed and over-wrought. The vengeance demon side was knowing, almost smug, and provided a voice within Anya's head that would sometimes pop up and say "I told you so."  
  
But when she moved back into old apartment, she never expected that she would allow the main reason for her return----Xander----to ever step foot into it again. Yet here he was, his head cradled in a tired arm as he studied a book of magical ancient text in front of him, his left leg bouncing up and down in a usual sign of nervous jitteriness. Anya was sitting on the other side of the table, flipping through a volume with indifference. The silence between the two seemed to fill up what felt like miles between them and both of them were more than painfully aware of it. Finally Anya sighed restlessly and pushed the books out of the way.  
  
"I don't get it, why do we have to research? Spike and Buffy just call up and think they can order us around. And the researching? Could be a lot easier if we actually had books . . . or a walking encyclopedia, like Giles." She motioned towards the few books that she salvaged from the ruins of the Magic Box. "I mean, all we really know right now that the necklace definitely has nothing to do with . . ." She flipped over one of the five books they had and were studying. " 'The Physiological History of Eastern World Wood Nymphs'," she frowned, reading the title. "Hmmph. Some all- mysterious stuck-on trinket indeed. What they need is just a good crowbar to up and wrench that baby right off, that's what I say."  
  
Xander looked towards Anya, his eyes slightly guarded and tired. He still wasn't completely comfortable being alone with Anya, and this new and rather expected development of Spike somehow making a mess where Buffy was concerned didn't do anything to ease Xander's somewhat surly mood. "Anya, I don't think it's that simple," he sighed. "They said that something magic-y could be involved. And let's not forget we're also researching the baffling cause for my hammer's . . . hammeriness."  
  
Anya tipped her head into her hand and looked at Xander, wrinkling her brow into confusion. "Okay, so tell me again . . . you said the hammer was . . . hammering? Excuse me if I don't get Scully-skeptical on you, it's not really the shock of the year."  
  
"No Anya, you don't get it," Xander insisted. "It was hammering . . . by itself. Floating around, smashing everything in sight. I woke up in the middle of the night and just heard it, hammering away." He sunk into his chair. "Which leaves me in desperate need of a new coffee table." He straightened and cast a suspicious look at his ex-fiancee. "Wait. You and Spike got your gifts together, didn't you?"  
  
Anya fidgeted uncomfortably. "No, I got your hammer in Sunnydale. Spike found the necklace in Africa."  
  
Xander was not convinced. "Seems awfully coincidental that you guys just happen to both come equipped with gifts around the same time."  
  
She continued to shrug flippantly. "Not really. When Spike came back, he showed me the necklace and it inspired me to go downtown and pick up a gift myself. Although now I'm wondering why I did," she murmured to herself huffily.  
  
Still not enough to ease Xander's doubt. "Okay . . . let me put it a different way . . . seems awfully coincidental that both your guys' gifts seem to be causing grief to the receivers," he pointed out with narrowed eyes.  
  
Anya threw her hands up in the air, teeth clenched. "We ARE on the Hellmouth! Enough mystical energy to turn a Hallmark card into an invocation of doom! And besides, what are you implying? That Spike and I purposely gave you cursed gifts or something?"  
  
Xander cocked his head in a self-righteous gesture, his lip curled. "I wouldn't put it past you guys," he mumbled. He emphasized on the words "you guys" disdainfully. Anya understood and straightened, nodding her head in angry, aggressive up-and-down motions.  
  
"Oh. I see. It's still 'me and Spike', is it? Me, evil, vengeful Anya with her illicit, undead lover Spike."  
  
Xander pursed his lips, knowing her hurt was warranted and that she was merely being understandably acerbically sarcastic, but the words still incensed him nonetheless. "You said it, not me," he replied in the same hushed, struggling-for-apathetic tone.  
  
"Stop it!" Anya cried, slapping the book she was holding down on the table. "Stop playing the hapless victim here! If I AM evil vengeful Anya, it's because you gave me reason to be! If Spike IS my illicit undead lover it's because you refused to be that!"  
  
Xander looked at her darkly and sadly. "I never refused to love you, Anya. I just . . . wasn't ready for marriage."  
  
"That's just man-speak for refusing to love me long-term! You might think that you loved me then, but you still couldn't let yourself imagine loving me for the rest of your life! Isn't that true?!"  
  
Xander gazed at his hands, his shoulders shifting up and down with guilt. "If anything, it was because I loved you too much," he said, almost whispered in a broken voice. "And I knew there would come a day when you wouldn't love me. I was doing it for you."  
  
Anya turned bright red as she sprang from her chair with heated force. "Oh God, thank you Xander!!" Anya exclaimed with mock-gratitude as she clapped her hands together loudly. "Thank you SO MUCH, you're the almighty hero, the knight-in-shining armor! Everything you did to me was out of love! Leaving me at the alter and humiliating me in front of all my family and friends----that was out of the burning love in your heart! Thank you for saving me from a non-existent future where I would fall out of love with you! THANK YOU!"  
  
Xander defeatedly got up as well, imploring her with arms wide open. "Anya-- -"  
  
Anya was pacing the apartment now, but suddenly whirled around, shaking with anger. "And where do you get off presuming to know when and where I'll fall out of love with you?! Who are you to know my feelings?! Because I gotta tell you Xander, if it were up to me, I would fall out of love with you, and I've wanted to, oh GOD how I've wanted to. But no, even despite everything you've put me through, for some totally inexplicable reason, I'm still in love with you, Xander Harris. Even after you hurt me in the worst way possible. What makes you think that if I can't love you through this that eventually I wouldn't?"  
  
Xander struggled to say something---anything in response. Hearing her reluctant declaration of love filled his heart with both hope and pain. All he wanted to do was go over to her and wrap his arms around her and pretend like the last few months had never happened. Instead, he just whispered, "You still love me?"  
  
Anya, frustrated beyond belief, stamped her foot like an impatient child. "YES!" she nearly screamed in a tone that didn't indicate any loving feeling at all. "What does it take for you to believe that? And why the hell do I even have to tell you it?! You're the one who should be coming to me for forgiveness! You're the one who should be showering me with professions of love and gifts! Oh god, and gifts! And instead I go out of my way to steal------" She paused as Xander's eyes went wide. Slumping as she was found out, she put a hand to her head and rolled her eyes. "Bloody hell," she murmured, Spike-ishly.  
  
"I knew it!" A shrill feminine voice erupted from the door. Standing at it were Buffy, hands fastened to her hips, Spike, feet shuffling shiftily, and Dawn, an mixed expression of excitement, dismay and amusement on her face. "I just KNEW that Anya stole that hammer like you stole the necklace at that museum!"  
  
Xander arched his eyebrows and stared at Buffy in confusion. "Museum?"  
  
"The lovely necklace Spike gave me?" Buffy said flatly, pointing stonily- faced at her neck. "He stole this little puppy at a museum. The same place he encouraged Anya to steal your hammer. And it looks like the gifts are cursed." Her voice was hard and cold, rather than enraged as it had been. Xander turned to Anya with shock and then to Spike with expected disgust and antagonism. All feel silent and stared at Spike, who was obviously aware of the culpability he was under.  
  
Stuffing his hands into his black jeans, he shrugged with an impish smile on his conniving face. "Well . . ." he cleared his throat and slapping his hands together, breaking the prickly silence finally. "Who else smells a field trip?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Author's Note from Rubygoddess: Sorry for the crappy ending, I wasn't sure how to end the chapter. I tried consulting my co-authoress, ArtemisKai, but the poor girl's mind is fried from the prospect of starting school tommorow, so I just left it. Hoped you enjoyed anyway! 


	8. Discoveries

Chapter 8: Discoveries  
  
  
  
"Stole!"  
  
"Xander, let me just explain----"  
  
"Stole! As in stolen! As in not yours! As in acts of petty theft and misdemeanors! As in something . . ." Xander paused and stopped his long, rushed stride and pointed hatefully at Spike. "As in something HE would do!"  
  
Anya sighed and stopped as well, the moonlit night casting tired shadows across her face. Spike faced an incensed Xander with a cocky expression, while Buffy resignedly stood next to him, her hands cradling her weary head. Dawn had stayed atypically quiet as she followed the group on their trek to the museum and was now worriedly standing behind Buffy in case a brawl between Xander and Spike occur.  
  
"Well how else did you expect me to get you a gift?" Anya wailed. "I was broke! You didn't think I could just up and BUY you a magicky hammering hammer, did you?"  
  
"I don't recall ever ASKING for a possessed tool that goes around smashing up my home furnishings!" Xander heatedly exclaimed. "I never asked you for anything!"  
  
"My point exactly!" Anya responded irately. "You never asked me for anything because you weren't even talking to me! And somehow, I was stupid enough to think that me going out of my way to steal you a gift would change that!" Anya was clearly not as sorry for stealing a priceless artifact as she was that stealing it did nothing to fix her and Xander's relationship.  
  
Xander stared at her disbelievingly. "So you thought engaging in highly illegal acts with my immortal enemy would help us resolve our issues?!"  
  
"Well it's not as if I was one of those drippy girlfriends who gets herself pregnant in desperate attempts to cling on to an indifferent lover and revive a broken relationship by dumping biological blackmail in the boyfriend's unknowing lap. I merely stole an ancient relic from some place that hardly any person visits voluntarily. I mean, come on, a museum? Who's gonna even miss it?"  
  
"Anya!" Xander gawked her with an expression of extreme dismay and chastisement on his face. "You can't justify an action like stealing! It's immoral, unethical, there's no excuse for it whatsoever------"  
  
Dawn cleared her throat uncomfortably and Xander paused as he turned to her with apologetic eyes. "Oh, Dawnie, you know I didn't mean you-------"  
  
Dawn waved a careless hand, feigning breeziness. "No, you're right. I was just so dumb and bratty last year. I'm not even going to try to make excuses for what I did----"  
  
"Why is it okay for Dawn then?" Anya interrupted loudly with a frown flickering across her sulking face. "When she stole all that merchandise from the Magic Box, it was all 'Oh poor Dawn, she's allowed to act the part of a juvenile delinquent because her sister was brought back from the dead'."  
  
"Hey!" Dawn exclaimed, offended.  
  
"And Spike!" Anya continued. "Spike steals stuff all the time and you all don't bat an eye!"  
  
Xander sighed. "Okay Anya, A. Dawn did what she did out of pain-----"  
  
"So did I! I did it out of the pain of having such a jackass for an ex- boyfriend!"  
  
"And B.," Xander went on, ignoring her comment, "Spike is evil. We expect nothing less than criminal actions from him."  
  
Spike opened his mouth to argue this point, tell everyone that there was now sodding definite proof of how wrong this statement was, although it couldn't be seen physically. But he suddenly realized that this wasn't the way he wanted to tell it, especially with Buffy standing right next to him, fuming.  
  
"Look guys, we can't spend all night arguing," Buffy sighed as she scratched where the necklace lay on her neck. "We've got to get the museum, talk to the curator, see what's going on with these gifts."  
  
"And what'll we do?" Spike said, lighting up a cigarette and taking a long drag. "Just stroll in and say 'Umm, hey there Mister, we're the ones who smashed open your display cases and raided your exhibits, can you bloody well help us?"  
  
"Well you should have THOUGHT of that before you thought visiting museums constituted as one-stop shopping!" Buffy hissed.  
  
Dawn clutched her pounding head, extremely fatigued with all the arguing. "Buffy . . ."  
  
Buffy turned and looked sympathetically towards her drained sister. "It's okay, Dawn, we don't need you to come with us. In fact, I think Willow's headed over to the house anyway, why don't you join her there so she's not completely alone?"  
  
Dawn nodded and trudged off, leaving the group of four, extremely antagonistic ex-lovers to walk in edgy silence.  
  
"Spike's right," Anya finally piped up. "How are we supposed to find the curator at this time of the night? I mean, it's not like school, where the faculty actually LIVE there."  
  
Xander gave an almost-amused sideways glance at Anya, but frowned when he realized the truth in what she was saying. "That's true guys . . . we can't just barge into the museum and expect to find all our answers just waiting for us . . . maybe we should go back and research the hammer and necklace first, then come back in the morning and try and find the curator."  
  
"In the morning?" Buffy screeched, still clinging to her neck. "I can't wait for the morning! This necklace is . . . giving me a rash or something!" Xander, Anya and Spike went over to her to investigate and sure enough, the skin around the necklace was turning bright red. Spike faintly touched her with concern.  
  
"Does it hurt?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed.  
  
Buffy paused again at his touch, but quickly swatted his hand away. "Yes," she replied flatly. "It does. It feels like it's burning me and itching me and I . . . ugh! I can't stand it!" She had to force her hands not to ragingly scratch her already inflamed neck. Spike turned to Xander with apprehension.  
  
"She's right, I don't think we should wait till morning," he said. "We have to find out what this necklace is doing to her."  
  
"It wouldn't be doing ANYTHING to her if it wasn't for you-----"  
  
Spike clenched his fists and stalked near Xander. "Oh shut your GOB, Harris, before I permanently shut it for you!"  
  
"Enough!" Buffy yelled, throwing her hands out towards the dueling males of the group. "Just enough! I say as long as we're headed towards the museum, we look there for information and clues. We might not find something, but at least we've got nothing to lose, right? But it would make this whole thing a HELL of a lot easier if you two stopped getting all testosterone- happy and kept your mouths shut!" With that, she stomped through the soft grass away from the rest, her arms crossed, trying to resist the temptation to scour the skin of her neck raw. Sighing, Anya looked to Spike and Xander with a vexed expression, rolled her eyes and trailed after Buffy. Spike and Xander shared an hostile glance before following her.  
  
Soon they approached a large stone building, looking nearly black despite the night's illumination from the glowing moon. It gave off a cold air, as most museums did. But somehow, this building was different. Two snarling animals that looked something like malicious Cereberic-dragon dogs flanked the long stretch of stately stone steps up to the museum. Other hellish and scowling stone creatures and gargoyles decorated the front architecture. Funny how with all her knowledge of Sunnydale landmarks, Buffy had never seen or heard of this particular museum before. Gazing at the eerie structure with less Slayer-initiative than before, she chirped weakly, "Now what?"  
  
"Now what?" Xander repeated, surprised at Buffy's hesitancy. "Now you go and kick in the museum door and we storm in with Scooby-stalwartness, that's what!"  
  
Spike snorted. "Scooby-stupidity is more like it. You can't just bust in the door in, you gotta go about this business in a covert manner."  
  
"Criminal manner, you mean."  
  
Spike gritted his teeth and willed himself to ignore the urge to gut Xander with a nearby wooden pole. "Anya and I know how to get inside the museum without setting off the alarms."  
  
Xander grimaced at Anya, who straightened, grinning with pride at having gained experience and knowledge in the thievery field. "What?" Anya chirped, off his look. "It's not like we're breaking into the Pentagon here . . . although now I'm kinda itching to try it . . ."  
  
Spike was already trying to scale the museum walls, grabbing on the thick vines of ivy covering the gray stone. Buffy and the rest watched him as he swiftly made his way up, climbing finally onto the roof.  
  
"Alright, I'll climb through the glass window on the top," he called. "Then when I get inside, I'll let you all in."  
  
"I thought most museums nowadays installed alarms on their whole premises, laser beams that can judge if anybody is anywhere on the floor. Won't it go off if you touch the ground inside?" Xander called back up at Spike.  
  
"The laser beams judge by body temperature. If the laser beams get the indication that there's anyone hotter that 90 degrees whooping it up in the place, then the alarm will go off." Spike was beginning to pry open the flat window on the roof. "That's where being a cold-bodied, walking corpse comes in handy." He grunted as he popped off the lock on one of the window panes. "When I let you in, I'll deactivate the alarms." Finally, succeeding in getting part of the window open, he slithered his legs through, preparing to jump down onto the museum floor.  
  
Sweeping down onto it, he rejoiced as the only thing he heard was his Doc Martens pounding to the linoleum. He then edged near the front of the museum, past many dark looking exhibits, to a small black box next to the main entrance. Opening it, he remembered the code that his demon friend, who was a hacker, had given to him. He punched in 56-A-17568-BKU onto the keypad. It had worked the first time, so he wasn't worried that anything would go wrong. But suddenly, as he finished punching, a blaring siren screamed out into the dark air as a red light pulsed on and off frenetically. Panicked, Spike glanced around and soon the front doors threw open with some unseen force. Xander, Buffy and Anya flew into the entrance, looking like they were pushed by the same invisible power, yelping as they were thrown onto the floor. Spike was pushed down from where he was and thrown onto the floor, landing next to Buffy.  
  
Alarmed and fearful, the foursome looked around until they detected a strange glow slowly emerging from the darkness. A man, grasping onto a candle and guarding the withering flame with one hand, approached them with a smile. His appearance was quite ordinary, not seemingly suspicious in the slightest; his gray hair was slicked stylishly back, and a clean and tidy beard covered his face. He wore a pair of glasses and a blue sports jacket with a coat of arms on it along a fancy French cravat. Overall, he looked like a rather suave man easing gracefully into a healthy old age. He must have been the curator. Still smiling mysteriously, he stopped, his shiny patent leather shoes ceasing to make a clack on the floor. He gazed down at the inopportune group in a sort of detached, knowing manner and murmured in a booming, rich voice, "Well look what we've got here . . . " 


	9. Tasks At Hand

Chapter 9:  
  
  
  
Buffy gaped up at the curator, he mouth hanging open, her eyes wide. She realized she must look like a deer-in-the headlights, but at the same time she couldn't get past the curators jovial smile and welcoming air. He had his hands clasped in front of his chest, his head slightly tilted, looking down at them.  
  
Panicked, Buffy grasped pathetically for some sort of excuse as to what they were all doing breaking into this apparently kind man's museum. " I know what this looks like, but I swear, we're not."  
  
" Oh, I know who you are," the man said, again smiling as he said this and looking completely pleased. " You're the lot that broke into my humble museum a few weeks back, taking two of my more honored treasures."  
  
Spike frowned, thinking back on something. " Wait, I the cameras before we."  
  
Once again, the curator jumped in, " Oh, I have other ways of watching over my little hoard of goodies; you don't leave your most precious gifts unguarded do you?" He smiled as if their panicked and bewildered expressions had given him some sort of an answer. " Ah, you see, you always keep important things safe." For the first time, his expression changed, and with the most forlorn features and melancholy tone of voice he added, " But sometimes bad things can happen to the things you hold dear." With a quick and understanding glance, Spike looked over at Buffy, who he found looking at him. They both quickly turned back to look at the curator, all four of breakers-and-enterers still lying on the floor.  
  
" I tried to protect my things, but I knew that wandering hands would one day decide to take my things for themselves."  
  
" But you don't own the museum," Anya said, standing up and dusting off her skirt. The others all quickly followed, finally realizing they had all been on the floor. " You don't own any of the artifacts either. These things all belong to the city and the wealthy contributors. Technically, we stole from them," she said with a smile that signified how much she had enjoyed correcting him.  
  
The curator looked slightly angered by this. " No, these are my things. I watch over them, and I command those that take care of them. They are my things."  
  
Buffy, slightly wigged out, just nodded to the curator to calm him down. " Okay, your stuff. Got it." Then she reached up and frantically touched the necklace, drawing his attention to the gold jewelry and the red rash on her skin surrounding it. " Now take it back!"  
  
The curator walked closer to her, and looked down at her neck. He squinted, then pushed his glasses up against his face. He turned his head from side to side and looked thoroughly engrossed in his inspection when he pulled back rapidly and grinned. " Can't help you, it won't come off."  
  
Buffy's eyes widened and she took a step forward, which must have looked threatening, because the curator backed up speedily. " Won't come off? I don't remember applying glue to it before I put it on. Why won't it come off?"  
  
The curator smoothed his clothes and turned away from them, starting off down the hallway. The four of them exchanged confused and worried glances before hurrying after him. He talked as they walk, occasionally gesturing to an artifact and speedily giving them its history.  
  
" I cursed all of my artifacts," he said.  
  
" Cursed?!" Xander and Buffy exclaimed. " Cursed how? Why?" Xander asked, panicky.  
  
" Oh, to ensure that things would not be stolen. Or, if such a calamity occurred, the thief would not go unpunished." The curator wagged his finger in the air as he said this, as if he was upholding some sacred law.  
  
" Yeah, but you see, we didn't steal these things!" Buffy exclaimed, jumping up in front of him, causing the small procession to come to a halt.  
  
  
  
" Well, of course you did. I know, you are wearing my necklace that was once displayed in that case." The curator pointed behind her and she turned quickly to glance at the neck shaped stand, covered in navy felt, that was now bare.  
  
" No, you don't understand," Buffy said, turning back to face the old museum runner. " I did not steal this necklace! He did!" Buffy gestured to Spike. " He stole it, he gave it to me, I knew nothing about it being a prized artifact in a musty museum."  
  
" Now wait here," the curator said. " My museum is not now, nor has ever been musty."  
  
With a confused look Buffy said, " Of course not. But the important here, I did not steal the necklace, he did, curse him!"  
  
" Hey, wait a second." Spike said, not liking the sound of being cursed. " Yeah, all right, I nicked it, but it was for a lady, a good chap such as yourself must understand that." From the blank look on the curator's face, Spike sighed and waved his hand dismissively. " Forget it. Yeah, I stole it, but I am bloody returning it, what more do you want?"  
  
The curator scowled. " Well, I would have been quite pleased if the stealing part had never happened, but no sense in worrying over the past, what's done is done." He began to walk away, as once more Buffy and Spike exchanged one of those shy and knowing glances. Then they all hurried after him as he went into an office.  
  
The room was lined with artifacts that were obviously more rare and valuable, kept out of reach of prying eyes and hands. There was a desk somewhere buried beneath backpacks and half eaten fast food sandwiches and bags of chips, not to mention enough papers to have once made an entire tree. Buffy shuffled her way through the clutter, glancing at the curator.  
  
" So what are you going to do? You can't just leave me like this, it's not my fault. As I said, he did it."  
  
" Yes we know, Miss Repetitive-Guilt-Tripper. I did it; we have all established this. Let's move to the pummeling of a little old man." Buffy glared at Spike before turning back to the curator.  
  
He was standing still, looking around at the walls and smiling. She rolled her eyes, concluding that he was scattered brained beyond recovery, and just decided to wait until he snapped himself out of his funk. She looked down at his desk, noticing his name plate. She leaned forward, wiping the layer of dust away and read the faded words.  
  
" Melvin Pascal." She read the word and rolled her eyes, marveling at the true geekiness it inspired.  
  
" There's the name of a true blue dude if I ever heard one," Xander whispered to them.  
  
" Yeah, not much with the strength or coolness. It reeks of a book-wormish nerd who hasn't discovered the opposite sex yet," Anya added perkily, maybe just a bit too loudly.  
  
Mr. Pascal turned to glare at them. " Well, parents aren't kind when picking names. As you all well know." He turned away from them as they all glared back at him.  
  
Spike was noticing something else about his statement though. " How do you know our names?"  
  
" Ah, what a good question. Spike, Buffy Summers, Xander Harris, and Anyanka. All can be researched quite easily. Just takes a bit of patience, a lot of spare time, and an Internet hookup. A few spells move the process along quite nicely, too."  
  
" If only the demons of the town knew that the slayer was on the net, I'd be out that whole element of surprise thing I've been working on." Buffy shook herself out of the idea that she was on display, and looked at Melvin. " So what? Are you calling the police?"  
  
" Oh, no. I was going to, but seeing as you did take the time to return it, out of selfish reasons or no, I will grant a little lenience. That, and if you are in a cell, you can't very well work of your debt, now can you?"  
  
This plunged them all into silence. Finally, Anya broke it with her ever unknowing air. "Debt? We don't owe you money. Just take your crusty old artifacts back and we'll go away."  
  
" Ah, if only it were that simple. You see, the curses I placed on the items in the museum have specific steps to follow to release them. For instance, you cannot return anything without replacing the item."  
  
" That's ridiculous!" Xander yelled. " Where am I going to find an ancient warrior's hammer just lying around? There is no way I can replace that. I think its just some gimmick to get yourself some new stuff."  
  
The curator frowned. " Oh no, its nothing like that, young man, I assure you. It is simply the only way to break the particular spell I placed on the items. And for some clarification, you don't have to replace the item with the exact same thing you stole. Just something worthy of a place in a museum. And for reference, I will supply what needs to be gotten."  
  
Melvin hurried behind his desk and started shuffling through the drawers. He finally pulled out a piece of paper, adjusted his glasses, then read over it. He held the paper out to them then, and no one took it. They all just stood and stared at the eccentric old man.  
  
He sighed and brought his arm back to his side. " Well, if you don't want to replace what was taken, and you don't want the necklace to come off, and you want the hammer to go on hammering, then it is just prison for you law- breakers. Keep in mind, the hammer will get more aggressive, and the necklace will slowly kill you, but."  
  
" What?!" they all exclaimed. " Kill me?" Buffy asked, her hand flying to her through, fingering the red rash that seemed to have grown. " How long will it be before it.?"  
  
" Oh, a little while. Don't worry dear, just long enough for you to retrieve these items.." He once again held the paper out to them, and Buffy snatched it from his hands and started out of his office.  
  
" Okay, guys, let's not dawdle. People dying from cursed necklace, let's hop to it."  
  
" Oh wait!" the curator yelled. " There is one thing. You have only twenty- four hours to retrieve my things. If you don't, the necklace will kill you and the hammer will pursue you until it." Off of Xander's very nervous look, Melvin shrugged. " Well, you know. Also, I need some insurance."  
  
" Now we're indebted to you and need to make a deposit?" Xander asked.  
  
" Well, I need half of you to stay here, to make sure the other two don't just run off. I'm sure there are other ways to fix the little curse I made, but nothing to stop me from calling the police. This is really your only choice. So two of you stay, and two of you go."  
  
The four glanced at each other. " Oh, I'll stay here," Anya quickly said. " Safely out of harms way, should harm happen to pass by."  
  
Buffy rolled her eyes. " I'll go, I can't stay here. I need to get this stupid thing off my neck soon."  
  
" I'll go with you," Spike said, looking at her. " I did give you a grubby present."  
  
" Then it's settled," Melvin said with a smile. " You two go get those items, and you two go retrieve my hammer then come back."  
  
" Your hammer?" Anya asked. " You can't be serious. It's dangerous. I thought I made it clear about the wanting none of the danger. Buffy does that, I watch from a safe distance."  
  
" Well, I need to know it hasn't been damaged." The curator motioned to Buffy. " I can see the necklace is in fine shape, but I need to know the hammer is also. So run along now, time is a' wasting." They all exchanged looks of worry and doubt before Melvin shooed them out of his office.  
  
" And don't you come back here without my things!" the curator yelled after them as they exited the museum.  
  
  
  
  
  
Outside, they gathered under a streetlight and looked at the list. After skimming it quickly, Buffy noticed something. " Hey! There are three things on this list, you only stole two." Buffy shot warning threatening at both of them. " Right?"  
  
" Oh, yes, we limited our crime spree to only taking three things. There was this really nice ring I saw, but the case was locked. Couldn't get it open." Her mouth creased in a pout of disappointment. " I tried for a long time, its such a pity to have to have left it. You know, I could."  
  
" Anya!" Xander yelled at her. " Please, Buffy's dying from a cursed necklace, and my apartment is still being smashed to bits by a renegade hammer. Can we focus, please?"  
  
Anya shrugged and nodded her head towards the list. " What does it say?"  
  
Buffy looked down at the first item again. " Penalties for two stolen things, one broken. You broke something?"  
  
" Oh, that," Spike muttered. " Bloody statue, out of the corner of my eye, I swear it looked like a security guard."  
  
" So you what, killed the bad cement figure?"  
  
" Something like that," Spike mumbled, shrugging.  
  
Buffy sighed before looking to Xander. " You two better hurry up and get that hammer. That curator looked ready to blow a gasket or something. He seems rather attached to the artifacts."  
  
Xander looked at her seriously. " You'll be all right?" he glanced at Spike.  
  
" I'll be fine," Buffy said quietly.  
  
Xander nodded, then he and Anya hurried away. As soon as the were out of sight, Buffy looked back to the paper.  
  
" Okay.the first test, or whatever this is." Buffy read for a second then rolled her eyes and sighed. " Great, a riddle. It says:  
  
An object hides among the fold,  
  
It isn't young, it isn't old.  
  
The object has no life or creed,  
  
The problem is it can't be seen.  
  
Only those who walk in night,  
  
Can find the object in the light."  
  
Buffy looked up at Spike, a frown creasing her brow. " What the hell does that mean?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Anya and Xander entered his home, a distant hammering coming from farther back in his apartment. Xander surveyed the damage done to his nice living space, and threw his arms up in dismay. " I'll never get my deposit back for this month!"  
  
The walls were littered with large gaping holes, and the table in his dining room was smashed down the middle. The kitchen counter was also marked by bangings from the hammer, as was the floor. His TV also had a large hole in its screen. He was afraid to even look at his other rooms.  
  
" Wow, it's ruined. The hammer really doesn't do that great of work," Anya said matter-of-factly.  
  
" Yes, I-" Xander was cut off as he yelled and fell backwards. The hammer, after crashing through his bathroom door, came flying at him to smack into the wall.  
  
" Xander!" he heard Anya scream. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed her arm, pulling her along with him.  
  
The hammer chased them across the room, swinging at them. Each time they dodged it and it went hurtling into something else, bashing it to pieces. They turned and ran for the door, but the hammer swung around in their faces. " Anya, get down!"  
  
They both fell to the floor and the hammer went flying past them into the far wall. It smashed through the foundation, stuck there, the handle wiggling. " Get into my room!" They hopped up and ran over to the door, pulling it closed quickly behind them. Xander locked it, and they fell back on his bed, breathing hard after the chase.  
  
" So, what do we do-" Just then, the hammering sound began, as the door pushed on its hinges. Xander looked panicked for several moments, before reaching for a chair. They began pushing things up against the door, until all that remained in its original place was the bed.  
  
" Now what?" Anya panted, as the hammering continued, and the furniture shook.  
  
" I don't know." Xander looked to the window, knowing that there was a very long drop on the other side of it, and no hand holds to climb their way down. He also knew they couldn't go back to the museum at all without the hammer. But if Spike and Buffy succeeded in retrieving the items on that list, if they didn't get back to the museum with the hammer in time, Buffy would die. And if that door gave, so would they. " We're trapped." 


	10. Obstacles

Chapter Ten:  
  
  
  
  
  
" All right, this makes no bleeding sense what-so-ever."  
  
Spike was holding the list up to the light from the street light, letting it illuminate the nonsense words on the page. Buffy stood next to him, not too close, peering over his shoulder at it, thinking it over in her mind for the hundredth time.  
  
" You noticed that too?" Buffy shot at Spike.  
  
Spike shifted his weight, looking at the piece of paper with a whole new expression, as if these changes would help him understand what the words meant. " Now it says, ' those who walk in night.' Does it mean those who always walk in night or those who just happening to be in the night at this moment?"  
  
Buffy shot him another annoyed look. " If I knew any of this, do you really think I would still be associating with you?"  
  
Spike spared her an agitated glance before turning back to the riddle and reading it once more:  
  
" An object hides among the fold,  
  
It isn't young, it isn't old.  
  
The object has no life or creed,  
  
The problem is it can't be seen.  
  
Only those who walk in night,  
  
Can find the object in the light.  
  
That makes no sense at all," he concluded.  
  
Buffy threw her hands up in the air, walking a few paces away from him. " Thank you! I am so glad we spent the sum of twenty minutes just to conclude that this ridiculous riddle means nothing! I could have done that on my own in two seconds!"  
  
Spike dropped his arms to his side, letting the paper make quite a bit of noise in the air, as he let more of his agitation show. " Oh, don't give me that, its not like I'm not trying. For you, I might add. You know, I don't have to do this. I'm only doing it to save your life."  
  
Buffy's eyes widened. " And because it's your fault in the first place! You gave me a cursed gift!"  
  
" It's not like I forced the sodding thing around your neck!"  
  
" It's not the first thing you'd have tried to force."  
  
Spike's expression suddenly looked so guilt-ridden and hurt that Buffy almost regretted what she'd said, then he looked at her with anger again. " Oh, no, Slayer. I did not-put that thing on you. I gave it to you, you refused it, you took it home, you put it on yourself." He grinned in that cocky manner that always frustrated her. " Did you secretly hope there would be an ankle bracelet to go along with it?"  
  
Buffy placed her hands on her hips to show that she was just about done with this conversation. " Look, I thought the necklace was nice. Putting it on had nothing to do with you, it was totally and completely all the necklace."  
  
" Is that what you want to believe or what you want me to believe?" Spike purred at her.  
  
Buffy glared at him for a long moment before she leaned forward and snatched the paper from his hand. " Oh, I can't deal with this. I can't deal with you. Why don't you just leave, I'll figure this all out on my own, get this necklace off, and then never speak to you again. Life will be grand; like it was when you were gone."  
  
Spike's cockiness disappeared to be replaced by more guilt and hurt. " Buffy, I." He looked away from her as he tried to think of what to say. " I didn't want it to go like this. I guess I thought I'd come back, say my apologies, and you'd fall into my arms." He grinned at her. " Then I remember you're not the fall-into-the-gentleman's-arms type."  
  
Buffy, still less than sure she wanted him to help her, only replied, " That, of course, entails that there are a gentleman's arms in the vicinity to fall in too."  
  
Spike looked away from her at that, his voice lowering as he spoke again, " I'm just trying to save your life, wouldn't you do the same for me?"  
  
Spike suddenly realized what he'd said, making it possible to get some sort of honest answer out of her, when in all honesty, he was just trying to show that he cared for her. Now, there was a chance that it could show the opposite.  
  
But only silence met his question as the moments passed. Then suddenly, he heard her say, " If it was my fault that your-unlife was in danger, then." Spike looked up at her hopefully. To his regret, all she said was, " Maybe."  
  
Spike was less than satisfied with this answer but he hid it well by asking, " So the riddle, you do still want my help with it don't you? Or are my services no longer required?"  
  
Buffy gave him that stony gaze once more before looking at the paper. " I can do it on my own. You're not much help anyway."  
  
Spike hesitated before he took a few steps away, then turned back. " Buffy, you know, I am here to help. Not many other pressing matters to attend to as of yet."  
  
Buffy sighed and looked back up at him, standing just outside the light of the street lamp. " Spike, it's okay. Even though this is all your fault, I can do this by my self."  
  
Spike cocked his head to one side, still hesitant to leave her in danger. " Are you sure, luv?"  
  
" What you don't think I can handle it on my own?" She yelled at him, only a little shaken by the use of the word "luv."  
  
Spike grinned at her. " Well, you are working solo here, without the assistance of your precious scoobies. You sure that the job isn't too big?"  
  
" I've handled bigger." Spike smirked at her and Buffy rolled her eyes, turning her back to him. To herself she said, " This night is going to take forever."  
  
  
  
  
  
THWACK! The hammer smacked against the bedroom door again, this time harder than it had been before. The furniture guarding the once inch thick wooden door rattled and there was a cracking sound. But so far, nothing had fallen, and there was no indication that they were in immediate danger.  
  
Nothing besides Anya's whining, which was steadily driving Xander insane. " Oh God, it's going to break through the door and kill us. It's going to bash upside the head and our brains will spill out, all pink and worm- like."  
  
Xander frowned at the image of this and waved his hands irritatingly. " Anya, I don't get it, why can't you just teleport us out of here with your brand-spanking new demonic powers?"  
  
Anya looked up at him from her spot on the floor, where she sat with her knees pulled against her and her arms hugging herself tight. " Well, for one thing, I can only teleport myself, I couldn't take you with me, I'm not powerful enough yet." Xander sighed and nodded as Anya added, " Plus, I already tried it and it's not working."  
  
Xander resisted the urge to yell at her and ask why he hadn't told her this, but he didn't. He just took slow deep breaths then asked, " Why isn't it working? What's wrong?"  
  
" Oh, nothing's wrong," Anya quickly assured him. A swirl of blue clouds wrapped itself around her form, and soon he couldn't see her through the mist. The light faded and she disappeared, then the swirling sound came from behind him, and Xander spun around to see Anya sitting on the other side of the room, in the exact position she had been. " See, it works just fine. For some reason, I just can't get outside."  
  
A moment of silence lingered over them as they both thought about why this might be when Anya smiled excitedly and stood up. " Oh!" She waved her hands in breathless animation as she tried to form her thought into words. " The spell!"  
  
Xander looked at her in confusion, and Anya's excitement suddenly waned. She rolled her eyes and looked at him with exasperation. " The spell on the hammer. Obviously another little thing that the spell entails, which the curator neglected to mention, is that magic can't be used against it. That's why I can't use my powers to escape from it."  
  
Xander, finally understanding, looked back towards the door, too angry to say anything. He opened and closed his mouth several times, looking like he was going to say something, when he suddenly pointed his finger at Anya and looked at her serious. " You know, that's just not fair."  
  
  
  
  
  
" You know, I could help you a lot better if you stopped prancing around."  
  
Spike stood leaning against the light post as Buffy paced nervously back and forth in front of him. She was reading the list over and over, not learning anything new, but too frustrated to stop.  
  
" Spike! You're not helping at all, okay? This stupid rhyme makes no sense, my life is at risk here, and you are just standing there smirking at me! How is that going to help in the least?"  
  
Spike didn't move, but just continued to grin cockily at her. " I said I'd help you, Buffy, and I will, but I am not going to do a thing until you say so." He looked away from her. "I won't do anything until you say so."  
  
Buffy stopped her pacing and stared at him. She had the riddle memorized by this time, but she still couldn't figure it out. He seemed to know something that she didn't, but he wasn't offering anything without her agreement, and she was almost afraid to accept it. She knew once she said that she needed him, he'd never let her forget it. Even the prospect of her life hanging in the balance wasn't enough to let her answer him right away.  
  
" All right.." Spike looked up at her hopefully, but then Buffy lost her courage, and regained her stubborn stupidity. " The third line says." she began reading to herself.  
  
  
  
  
  
Xander bobbed his head to the steady pounding of the hammer on his bedroom door. Anya sat leaning against his bed, her expression slightly catatonic. They had been locked in the tiny room for nearly an hour, and it was hot and confining. Xander suddenly realized how the big cats at the zoo felt caged up.  
  
Anya raised her head up straight and suddenly glared at him. " Now I remember why I hated living here so much, Mr. Cheap-ness never turned on the air conditioner."  
  
Xander only stared at her, continuing to bob his head to the beat of the hammer's undeniably musical beat. Anya groaned and rolled her eyes, pushing herself to her feet. "Well maybe some air will help."  
  
She made her way to the window, and reached down to the handle that needed to be pulled to open the glass panels. She struggled with it for several minutes before it burst forward, letting fresh night air come in.  
  
She leaned far out, breathing deeply. She closed her eyes, leaning forward. She suddenly lost her footing and fell forward slightly. She let out a bellow as she felt herself pitching forward. " Anya!" She heard her name yelled from behind her, then strong hands grasped her waist, and her pitching head-first stopped.  
  
Anya sighed and opened her eyes, which had been clinched shut in panic. " Oh, Xander, thank-" Anya stopped mid sentence as she realized what she was looking at beneath her. " Pull me back up."  
  
Xander pulled her up to stand in front of him, fully expecting a smile and a maybe a hug for his bravery. But instead, he was met with a frown and Anya's upset stance-hands on hips, foot tapping the floor.  
  
" Xander, has it occurred to you that with all this hammering going on, none of your neighbors have come over, upset about the noise?"  
  
Xander thought about this for a moment, then waved his hand at her dismissively. " Oh, that's just because there has been a construction team here working on the building."  
  
Anya nodded at him angrily, and his eyes suddenly widened. " Oh."  
  
Anya pushed him to the window, and he looked down. He was met with the sight of scaffolding sitting on the ground, reaching right up to his bedroom window. They had been working on his end of the building earlier that day and had not cleaned up the equipment. It would be simple to climb out onto it and then down to the ground.  
  
" I wonder how we could get out," Anya said mockingly from behind him. " We're really high up and there isn't anything convenient to climb down on. You know, like maybe a scaffolding!"  
  
Xander cringed at her tone. " All right, all right. I forgot, okay? There were a few things sort of clouding my mind."  
  
" Like sheer stupidity?" Anya suggested.  
  
" Now you're being a bit harsh. Come on." He motioned to the window and reached out to take her arm. She begrudgingly took his hand and lifted her leg through the window. She sat down on the sill, and then let him slowly lower her to the scaffold. He then climbed out slowly himself, and Anya backed out of his way as he fell and landed on his back.  
  
He groaned and Anya looked down at him. " Thanks for the help," Xander grunted as he pulled himself to his feet and looked down towards the ground. "Still about twelve more feet," he told her. " We can like, shimming down the poles I guess, or try and lower this down slowly--"  
  
" Or we could use the ladder," Anya added, patting the top rung of a silver ladder with her hand.  
  
Xander stared at it for a moment. " That might work too."  
  
Anya swung her leg over the side of the ladder and began to climb down. Just as Xander was about to follow her, he suddenly noticed something. There was an extreme lack of nothing. The steady pound that he had been hearing for the last hour had stopped, and he hadn't noticed.  
  
Xander stopped his dissension and looked around, perking his ears up for any sound at all. " Anya?" he called down to his ex-fiancé.  
  
" What?" Anya yelled as she hopped down to the ground, dusting herself off.  
  
Just then, the pounding sound came again, too close. The scaffolding shook and Xander clung the ladder. The hammer wavered in the air just feet from him, smacking at the side of the scaffolding, forcing it to teeter dangerously on its wheels.  
  
Then it came closer, smacking at the ladder right where Xander's hands were. He yelled with each swing of the hammer, hearing Anya yelling below him. Then the hammer swung suddenly to the other side, at his other hand. It caught him off guard, and smacked him on the finger.  
  
He screamed with the pain, pulling his arm to his chest. He began to walk down the rungs again when the hammer swung one last time at him. It swung at his other hand, and he released his hold on the ladder. Then he lost his footing, falling backwards.  
  
" Xander!" Anya screamed as he pitched toward the ground, then hit, lying there motionless, as the hammer turned and came at her.  
  
  
  
  
  
Buffy threw the paper to the ground and hopped up and down on it several times, digging her heels into it.  
  
From his spot sitting on the ground, inhaling his cigarette's deadly gases, Spike smirked at this display. " Oh, that's right, show the mean paper who's boss."  
  
Buffy stopped her furious hopping and swiped her disheveled hair out of her face. " Oh, shut up, Spike. I'm frustrated, okay?" She leaned down and picked the paper off the ground, dusting the dirt off of it and fixing the tears. " You're not helping, I am dying and Xander and Anya haven't returned yet. If they were going back to the museum they should pass right by us. And it has been over and hour, and nothing!"  
  
Buffy turned to start her pacing again when her legs stuck and they didn't move. She plopped down backwards onto butt. She squealed with pain, and lifted up slightly to rub her sore hind quarters.  
  
That's when she looked up to see Spike kneeling in front of her. He reached out slowly, and to her surprise, she didn't jerk away. He let one finger lightly brush her hair from her eyes and then he just kneeled there and looked at her.  
  
Finally, he spoke, saying things she really didn't want to hear. " Buffy, I know you hate me. I don't blame you, luv. But I can't and won't let you die, just let me help you. I promise, if its what you want, when we're done with this, I'll leave you alone for awhile. You, your scoobies, Niblet. All of you. Just let me save your life, and then I'll get out of it." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes pleading. " All right?"  
  
Buffy looked away from him, down at the paper still clenched in her hand. She didn't want Spike to help her, to save her life. If he did, then she would owe him, even if it was his fault in the first place. She didn't want to owe him anything, she wanted her space from him. But she also didn't want to die, and if it meant letting him help her, then she would give in, just long enough to save her life.  
  
" All right. You help me, we do it quickly, and then you leave me alone, deal?"  
  
Spike smiled at her as he pulled her to her feet. " That's how it was last time, we've got a deal."  
  
Buffy glared at him as he took the paper, read over it, then handed it back to her. " Well, that simple, really," he said. " While you were pacing like a jungle cat I was thinking. " 'It isn't young, it isn't old, the object had no life or creed.' It's obviously inanimate."  
  
Buffy looked at him, her face showing her less than impressed mood. " Gee, you figure that out all on your own, Mr. Brilliance?"  
  
Spike rolled her eyes at her and pointed to the paper. " Look, that's just the beginning. Don't get your panties all knotted into bunches." Spike looked at the paper again. " Okay, next is ' It can't be seen. Only those who walk in night can see it in the light.' I remembered something. Well, someone who walks in the night..like a vampire?"  
  
Buffy's eyes widened and she smiled excitedly. " The object is a vampire!"  
  
Spike just stared at her until she realized that this wasn't right. " Oh," she said quietly.  
  
Spike sighed and then looked like he was telling her the mystery again. " Well, the object can't be seen, except by a vampire. It's inanimate, so it could be anything. But there is only one thing I know of that can only be seen by vampires. It's called the Vampire's Stone."  
  
Buffy raised her brows at him. " The Vampire's Stone? Like the Sorcerer's Stone?" Buffy suddenly smiled and looked away. " Ha, that'll show Dawn to tell me to crack books." Spike looked at her quizzically. " Don't ask."  
  
Spike nodded and went back to his explanation. " The Vampire's Stone. There is only one. The thing about it is that it's not really worth anything. It's just an enchanted diamond, supposed to taste like pure blood, attract human victims. But it doesn't work. It was made by some ponce back in the 1700's. Really wasn't a wiz when it came to the Black Arts. Or any kind of Arts for that matter."  
  
Buffy, not caring about any of this, waved her hand to shut him up. " Yeah, that's great. Where do we find this.stone?"  
  
Spike looked around them, smiling. " 'Will find the object in the light.'" He started to walk away, then bent over and reached out. His hand closed around thin air and he walked back to her, holding his arm out, and opening his palm.  
  
It was empty. But when Buffy reached forward and felt around, she felt a hard, round object in his hand. Her eyes widened. " That's it. the Vampire's Stone."  
  
There was the sound of raging wind behind them, then the curator appeared, smiling and looking very pleased. He walked right up to him and reached out to take the invisible stone from Spike and inspect it with a spyglass.  
  
" Ah, very nice. This thing works after all." He patted the small viewing utensil and tucked it and the stone into his pocket. " Very well done. Now, only tow things left. Have fun!"  
  
And with that, clouds of red and gray surrounded him, and when they faded he was gone.  
  
Buffy looked from where he used to stand to Spike. " Okay, now what?"  
  
" Well, like he said, two more to go." He held his arm out to her like a gentleman from old times. " Shall we go, milady?"  
  
Buffy spared him one disgusted glance before walking away, off to find the next item, feeling disturbingly like one of the gang from Scooby Doo. 


	11. Moving On

Chapter Eleven:  
  
  
  
  
  
" Did you hear that?" Buffy stopped walking suddenly and tried to strain her ears for the noise she'd just detected.  
  
Spike nodded, a slightly disgusted look on his face, and in his voice. " Yeah, I hear it. Vampire hearing remember? I could hear those two shagging all the way on the other block. Course, they are going at it like slightly larger than life rabbits, anyone could hear it."  
  
Buffy gave him an expressionless look, then raised her eyebrows at him. " No, I was thinking more like that pounding noise."  
  
Spike grinned. " Oh, there's pounding all right."  
  
Buffy shook her head, closing her eyes in irritation. " Spike, I was thinking more along the lines of a hammer. A pounding hammer."  
  
This idea slowly registered on Spike's face. " Right, figured that's what you meant."  
  
" You don't think it could be-" Spike and Buffy spared each other a look of realization then shock and took off running down the street. They weren't far from Xander's apartment, and that was a good thing, because it sounded like the hammer's pounding was becoming more furious.  
  
  
  
  
  
Anya screamed and crouched lower into the truck she had taken refuge in. The hammer had already smashed the glass, but she had laid a strip of plywood over her. And she'd concluded that it was really stronger than it looked.  
  
The hammer had apparently lost interest in Xander, and the part of her that wasn't screaming was praying it wasn't because her ex was dead. She'd run into the truck, covering herself with the wood, and she was bleeding from the cuts that the broken glass had given her. All in all, this day was rivaling the one when she was stranded at the altar.  
  
Suddenly the pounding stopped, and then she heard a loud grunt, then Buffy's voice yelling, " A little help here please." Anya pulled the plywood down, and looked out to see Spike and Buffy wrestle the hammer to the ground. They lay on top of it, their stomachs going up and down a little with the hammer's furious movement. Then Buffy looked up to see Anya. " Anya, see if he's okay."  
  
Anya wasted no time climbing out of the truck, tripping when her left shoe broke, then crawling over to Xander's motionless body. " Xander?" she asked anxiously as she put her hand on his chest and shook him. He didn't move. She shook him harder calling his name. When he still didn't move she yelled his name once more before hauling back and slapping him across the face.  
  
His eyes fluttered before he turned his head to stare blankly up at her. " You know, I did fall a very far distance, hit my head, was knocked unconscious, so do you really think slapping me was such a marvelous idea? Oh, and by the way, OW!"  
  
Anya rolled her eyes, instantly over her worry and getting back on the track to agitation. She stood up, slipping off her shoes, and then proceeded in dusting herself off for the second time. Xander slowly climbed to his feet, then they turned to see how Buffy and Spike were doing.  
  
They had managed to contain the hammer in a tool box, and the sound of the metal hammer head clashing against the metal of the box was resonating everywhere in the air. Anya cringed at the sound and backed away as Buffy walked up to Xander, handing him the box.  
  
" Take that to the museum, give it to the curator. Hopefully that means the you two will be freed from the curse." Xander nodded as he took the box. " You two okay?" Buffy asked as she dusted herself off as well.  
  
" Oh, just hunky-dory." Anya added quickly, in her most annoyingly sarcastic tone. " We were only about smashed to death by a hammer. Of course, in our colorful yet frightening lives, its not like it's anything new. I mean, who hasn't almost been smashed to death with a possessed hammer at least once in their lifetime?"  
  
Buffy stared blankly at Anya for a moment before stating, " Hammer, box, museum, you two, go." Anya rolled her eyes before she and Xander turned to walk away. Then Buffy looked at Spike, who had a split lip and a very exhausted look on his face. " Well, one hammer down, one task out of the way, what's next?"  
  
Spike pulled the paper he'd been keeping out of his pants pocket and looked it over. " Oh, looks like all kinds of fun is coming our way."  
  
  
  
  
  
Nearing the museum for the second time was a much different experience than the first time. First thing, Buffy and Spike were missing, and some of the hostility that the two shared for each other was gone. The museum still gave off that menacing air, and the many stone gargoyles still perched in their places, but the museum seemed a little more welcoming this time. Like it had been expecting them. And that even freaked out the 1200 year-old ex- demon.  
  
" Xander, are you all right? I noticed you walking all slouched over like one of the wounded warm victims.just with less patriotism. Do you need help? Or maybe a crutch or something?"  
  
Xander stopped and shifted the weight of the hammer-enclosing toolbox to his other arm, and wiped the sweat from his face. " No, no crutches required just yet. A couple more arms wouldn't be such a bad thing, but, then again, if someone was helping me carry this box, then maybe I'd-"  
  
" Oh, no," Anya said, taking a step back. " I told you I can't help you carry that. Not only did I just recently have my nails done, and I'm not as strong as you, I don't want to." She smiled cheerfully and leaned forward, patting him on the arm. " You have much more upper arm strength than I do, and you're doing fine. We'll be there in a second."  
  
With a grunt and another shift of the toolbox, Xander followed Anya up the stone steps of the museum and Anya knocked on the doors. It was only a second before the doors swung open and that frightening invisible wind grabbed them and hurtled them into the front hall.  
  
Anya landed with a thud, smacking her hand on the stone floor, where one of her long, polished fake nails promptly snapped off. She squealed in pain and glared up as the curator came chuckling down the hall to greet them.  
  
" I never tire of that old trick," he laughed to himself as he picked the toolbox off of the floor. " Hope it didn't hurt too much, but its just neat to see such large entities go flying into the air like rag dolls."  
  
He continued to chuckle at the thought as Anya picked herself up, shoving her disfigured hand into his face. " Hurt? This manicure cost forty- frickin' dollars mister! You going to pay for a replacement nail?"  
  
The curator only spared her hand a glance as Xander stood and hushed Anya's temper into silence. The curator began to walk off, but Xander, having no desire to stay there any longer than needed, didn't follow him, just asked, " So our debt is paid now, right? You've got your hammer, we've got fond memories, and we can go on our merry way?"  
  
The curator slowly turned around, still smiling brightly. " Oh, I'm afraid not. You see, I don't really know you, or your friends, so there's no telling the value of your friendship. So I really have no guarantee that they'll bring me my things, or even come back. So I'll have to keep you here." Anya and Xander jumped and turned as a loud clanging sound came from behind them. From the ceiling, a large metal cage door dropped down, blocking the exit like prison bars. Xander and Anya cast frightened looks to the curator. " You know," he said, " For insurance."  
  
  
  
  
  
" This is the place?" Buffy asked, scratching idly at her neck and looking up at the two-story Victorian before them. It was old and in bad condition, some of the windows had been boarded up and the plant life surrounding the structure was less than tended too. All-in-all, just the kind of place you'd expect to find a witch.  
  
" That's what the map says. There's no address on the house, and no mailbox. I guess being the dark wiccan type, she doesn't really need AARP pamphlets."  
  
Buffy took the map they'd gotten from a phone booth and then checked the directions on the list. The house was isolated near the woods on the edge of town, which really wasn't that far from the center of town. Still, they hadn't seen anyone all night and no cars had been on the rode for more than twenty minutes. It didn't bode well for the night so far.  
  
" Why do I get the feeling this isn't going to be fun?" Buffy asked as she tucked the map and the list into her pant's pocket.  
  
" Maybe because your awake, luv," Spike answered, still examining the house with a thoughtful, head-tilted-to-the-side look. " I really may need a cig after this encounter."  
  
" You know you should stop that." Buffy didn't look at him, but he looked at her. She knew looking at him would make this harder, and she had to get it done with. This needed to be said, and this was the best opportunity to do it. She needed to set her guidelines for Spike.  
  
" You know they can't hurt me, luv. Nicotine may be addictive for the undead, but its not really going to make me deader."  
  
" That's not what I meant. I mean you should stop.calling me luv." This time Buffy did turn to look at him, letting no emotion show on her face, staring him down like a mother scolding a child. If she showed the slightest affection he wouldn't get her point.  
  
Meanwhile, Spike just stood there, that stricken look on his face like his favorite puppy had just been hit by a car. " Ah, it's the lecture again is it? If you don't like the name, pet, I can stop it."  
  
" And you need to. All these names that make me sound like your.friend. Pet, luv, sugar, honey-bunch, whatever you feel the urge to call me, just quit it. I don't want to hear it from you. It still makes me squirm to hear you say my name. So no more. Please."  
  
It occurred to her that she sounded pleading, but in a way she was. Every kind word or soft gesture he showed her just wanted to make her forgive him for his actions. Every time he smiled at her or showed concern, she felt like smiling back. And she couldn't. Not with a vampire. A soulless vampire that tried to hurt her.  
  
Spike's expression looked more closed off now. She knew she'd hurt him, but she couldn't let herself care. He nodded slowly and smiled his defeated grin. " Whatever you say. I'm here to right my wrong, then I'll stay out of your way. Buffy."  
  
He said the word louder, like he was trying to force it into her mind that he'd do whatever it took to atone, but she didn't spare him another glance, she couldn't, because her eyes suddenly seemed hot and blurry. She just turned and started up the creaky wooden steps to the witches' house.  
  
Spike followed behind her, and even his footsteps seemed to sound heartbroken. She reached her hand out and then stopped, unsure about this whole situation. The list said that they were about to go up against a powerful witch and neither one of them had the kind of power to fight her. Buffy could kick her and they could hit her, but if she did magic on them, they couldn't fight that. And the only person they knew that could was.unavailable.  
  
" You know," Spike said from behind her, " She may be a powerful witch, but I doubt she can hear you knocking with your hand that far away from the door."  
  
Buffy scowled and smiled at the same time, praying that maybe it wouldn't be so hard to distance herself from Spike than she thought. " Well, its now or never," she told herself and rapped quickly on the wooden door.  
  
They stood there for what seemed like a lifetime, before Buffy heard the creaking of someone walking on the inside. She took a step back from the door as it was opened. The woman in front of them was smiling, dressed in the formal garb you would expect of a reclusive wicca. " Can I help you?" She sounded perfectly normal, no evil at all, but Buffy concluded she wasn't a very good judge, seeing her best friend and assumedly the least harmful person in the world had attempted to destroy the world less than four months earlier.  
  
" Yes you can." The woman stepped back to let them in, and Buffy took one last breath of fresh air as she walked forward into the musty old house of the smiling woman they were supposed to kill. 


End file.
